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Effects of 2019’s social protests on emergency health services utilization and case severity in Santiago, Chile: a time-series analysis

BACKGROUND: On October 18th, 2019, protestors gathered across Chile to call for social equity, resulting in widespread civil unrest and violent confrontation with the police. In this study, we quantify the effects of the 2019 Chilean protests on emergency health services utilization and inpatient ad...

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Autores principales: Gajardo, Abraham I.J., Wagner, Thomas D., Howell, Kristina Devi, González-Santa Cruz, Andrés, Kaufman, Jay S., Castillo-Carniglia, Alvaro
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Elsevier 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9903909/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36776456
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.lana.2021.100082
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author Gajardo, Abraham I.J.
Wagner, Thomas D.
Howell, Kristina Devi
González-Santa Cruz, Andrés
Kaufman, Jay S.
Castillo-Carniglia, Alvaro
author_facet Gajardo, Abraham I.J.
Wagner, Thomas D.
Howell, Kristina Devi
González-Santa Cruz, Andrés
Kaufman, Jay S.
Castillo-Carniglia, Alvaro
author_sort Gajardo, Abraham I.J.
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: On October 18th, 2019, protestors gathered across Chile to call for social equity, resulting in widespread civil unrest and violent confrontation with the police. In this study, we quantify the effects of the 2019 Chilean protests on emergency health services utilization and inpatient admission in Santiago. METHODS: We used weekly emergency department (ED) admissions (2015-2019) from three large public hospitals near the focal point of protests in Santiago. The exposure period was from October 18th to December 31st, 2019. The outcomes were the number of weekly consultations and hospitalizations by trauma and respiratory causes and the proportion of hospitalizations among consultants per 1,000. We implemented Bayesian structural time series models to calculate the absolute and relative effects and 95% credible intervals (CrI). FINDINGS: During the first ten weeks of protests ED consultations declined on average by 14% for trauma (95%CrI: -40·2%, 11·5%) and 30% for respiratory causes (95%CrI: -89·4%, 30·2%), 7% for respiratory hospitalizations (95%CrI: -43·6%, 30·8%); however, none of these three results were statistically distinguishable from the null. Trauma hospitalizations, on the other hand, increased by 15% (95%CrI: 4·0%, 26·4%), and the proportion of hospitalizations per consultations increased by 40% for trauma (95%CrI: 13·1%, 68·0%) and 59% for respiratory causes (95%CrI: 29·4%, 87·9%). INTERPRETATION: The 2019 Chilean protests affected the use of emergency health services by increasing the trauma hospitalizations and the case hospitalization ratio per 1,000 consultations for trauma and respiratory causes. Crowd-control protocols must be reviewed to prevent the negative effects of civil unrest.
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spelling pubmed-99039092023-02-10 Effects of 2019’s social protests on emergency health services utilization and case severity in Santiago, Chile: a time-series analysis Gajardo, Abraham I.J. Wagner, Thomas D. Howell, Kristina Devi González-Santa Cruz, Andrés Kaufman, Jay S. Castillo-Carniglia, Alvaro Lancet Reg Health Am Articles BACKGROUND: On October 18th, 2019, protestors gathered across Chile to call for social equity, resulting in widespread civil unrest and violent confrontation with the police. In this study, we quantify the effects of the 2019 Chilean protests on emergency health services utilization and inpatient admission in Santiago. METHODS: We used weekly emergency department (ED) admissions (2015-2019) from three large public hospitals near the focal point of protests in Santiago. The exposure period was from October 18th to December 31st, 2019. The outcomes were the number of weekly consultations and hospitalizations by trauma and respiratory causes and the proportion of hospitalizations among consultants per 1,000. We implemented Bayesian structural time series models to calculate the absolute and relative effects and 95% credible intervals (CrI). FINDINGS: During the first ten weeks of protests ED consultations declined on average by 14% for trauma (95%CrI: -40·2%, 11·5%) and 30% for respiratory causes (95%CrI: -89·4%, 30·2%), 7% for respiratory hospitalizations (95%CrI: -43·6%, 30·8%); however, none of these three results were statistically distinguishable from the null. Trauma hospitalizations, on the other hand, increased by 15% (95%CrI: 4·0%, 26·4%), and the proportion of hospitalizations per consultations increased by 40% for trauma (95%CrI: 13·1%, 68·0%) and 59% for respiratory causes (95%CrI: 29·4%, 87·9%). INTERPRETATION: The 2019 Chilean protests affected the use of emergency health services by increasing the trauma hospitalizations and the case hospitalization ratio per 1,000 consultations for trauma and respiratory causes. Crowd-control protocols must be reviewed to prevent the negative effects of civil unrest. Elsevier 2021-11-01 /pmc/articles/PMC9903909/ /pubmed/36776456 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.lana.2021.100082 Text en © 2021 The Author(s) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
spellingShingle Articles
Gajardo, Abraham I.J.
Wagner, Thomas D.
Howell, Kristina Devi
González-Santa Cruz, Andrés
Kaufman, Jay S.
Castillo-Carniglia, Alvaro
Effects of 2019’s social protests on emergency health services utilization and case severity in Santiago, Chile: a time-series analysis
title Effects of 2019’s social protests on emergency health services utilization and case severity in Santiago, Chile: a time-series analysis
title_full Effects of 2019’s social protests on emergency health services utilization and case severity in Santiago, Chile: a time-series analysis
title_fullStr Effects of 2019’s social protests on emergency health services utilization and case severity in Santiago, Chile: a time-series analysis
title_full_unstemmed Effects of 2019’s social protests on emergency health services utilization and case severity in Santiago, Chile: a time-series analysis
title_short Effects of 2019’s social protests on emergency health services utilization and case severity in Santiago, Chile: a time-series analysis
title_sort effects of 2019’s social protests on emergency health services utilization and case severity in santiago, chile: a time-series analysis
topic Articles
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9903909/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36776456
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.lana.2021.100082
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