Floods drive up hospitalisation risks for 7 months

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2025-04-08 19:00

Australia; New Zealand; NSW; VIC; QLD

Kingbob86 (Timothy), CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

An Australian-led study has found that floods can increase the risks of people needing hospitalisation for seven months after the flood event. The study which looked at data from Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, New Zealand, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam, found that the risks of hospitalisation increased after flood exposure for up to 210 days, except for hospitalisations due to infectious diseases and mental disorders, where the increases persisted for around 90 days and 150 days respectively. In Australia, the hospitalisation risks for specific causes mostly increased, however, the risks reduced for digestive diseases and mental disorders, as well as for hospitalisation from all causes put together.

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Journal/
conference: Nature Water

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: Monash University, The University of Sydney, University of Otago, The University of Queensland

Funder: This study was supported by the Australian Research Council (grant no. DP210102076), the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (grant no. GNT2000581) and the National Research Council of Thailand (grant no. N33A650979).

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