Correlation between weather and incidence of selected ophthalmological diagnoses: a database analysis

PURPOSE Our aim was to correlate the overall patient volume and the incidence of several ophthalmological diseases in our emergency department with weather data. PATIENTS AND METHODS For data analysis, we used our clinical data warehouse and weather data. We investigated the weekly overall patient volume and the average weekly incidence of all encoded diagnoses of "conjunctivitis", "foreign body", "acute iridocyclitis", and "corneal abrasion". A Spearman's correlation was performed to link these data with the weekly average sunshine duration, temperature, and wind speed. RESULTS We noticed increased patient volume in correlation with increasing sunshine duration and higher temperature. Moreover, we found a positive correlation between the weekly incidences of conjunctivitis and of foreign body and weather data. CONCLUSION The results of this data analysis reveal the possible influence of external conditions on the health of a population and can be used for weather-dependent resource allocation.