ArticleCanadian journal of public health = Revue canadienne de sante publique2026
Evaluation of a Canadian heat illness-related emergency department visit surveillance system.
Article in Canadian journal of public health = Revue canadienne de sante publique, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
9 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectivesIn the summer of 2021, the Canadian province of British Columbia (B.C.) experienced an unprecedented extreme heat event, which resulted in 619 heat-related deaths across the province (Henderson et al., 2022). This evaluation aims to assess the sensitivity and specificity of a surveillance algorithm to identify heat illness-related emergency department (ED) visits during this period, as well as to explore the impact of adjusting the case definition to enhance algorithm performance.
methodsA chart review of ED visits across a regional health authority in B.C. during the 2021 period of extreme heat was conducted. This was considered the most accurate information to which the algorithm was compared. Sensitivity and specificity were calculated for the original algorithm, as well as for an expanded algorithm including heat-related illnesses and the following additional diagnoses: syncope, altered level of consciousness, acute kidney injury, acute renal failure, and general weakness.
resultsThe original algorithm focusing on explicitly recorded heat illnesses has a sensitivity of 59% and a specificity of 100%. The expanded algorithm produced a sensitivity of 80% and a specificity of 96%.
conclusionSurveillance sensitivity for heat-related illness may be substantially impacted by the inclusion of diagnoses not explicitly naming effects of heat. Other jurisdictions could consider expanding heat-related illness definitions to include additional heat-associated diagnoses to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the impact of heat on health to support monitoring and action.
Indexed as
Identifiers
42547751What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.