Dust storms, driven by strong winds, pose health risks and cause environmental destruction, particularly in dry and arid regions. Based on location their frequency and intensity rates vary due to ecological changes and human-related land-use modifications. The storms and airborne particulate matter (PM2.5 and PM10) pollution mostly affect the U.S. Southwest including Arizona, California, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah. The fine particles of dust storms enter the lungs and bloodstream leading to serious health conditions. This remains scarce in the United States, despite their proven ability to increase mortality rates, hospitalizations, and traffic accidents worldwide.
The correlation between Emergency Department (ED) admissions with frequent dust storms in Arizona, California, and Utah and local medical data is also available. An Institutional Review Board at Emory University approved this study and utilized a consent waiver to examine the impact of storms on health outcomes. Researchers obtained data from National Weather Service (NWS) and ED medical records and examined respiratory and cardiovascular health data with motor vehicle accident records. Binary indicators were used for tracking ED patients across zip codes during different time periods as part of exposure measurements.
To control meteorological factors, a time-stratified case-crossover conditional quasi-Poisson regression model was applied. The authors simulated the response through democratic behaviors to measure the impact of ED visits before conducting stability examinations and it followed the Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) guidelines to reveal details about health hazards.
The data included 206 dust storm days and 129,506 ED visits recorded in zip codes corresponding to NWS forecast zones. The research examined 33,500 patient visits where 5,717 children made up 17.1% of the patients and 11,150 elderly adults (33.3%) accounted for the remaining population and it resulted in 51.9% male and 48.1% female participants. Arizona ED departments received 20.2% of their total visits because of motor vehicle accidents including 6,753 instances while asthma caused 6,734 visits comprising 20.1%, it counted 128 zip codes under dust influence and experienced dust storms on an average of 16.3 days annually. The research illustrated that dust storms are positively linked to asthma-related emergency room visits (RR, 1.06) along with culture-negative pneumonia (RR, 1.06), resulting in 1.79% of total cases.
NWS storm reports connected with a major increase in motor vehicle accident visits during dust storms with asthma and congestive heart failure admissions according to the time-stratified case-crossover design. A positive association exists between asthma visits and congestive heart failure, but strong winds showed negative links to ischemic heart disease, and it did not generate any associations during the study period regarding health outcomes.
The study findings suggest the changes in primary and secondary disease codes with differences in hospital and clinic treatment facilities. Positive correlations were yielded in trends with motor vehicle accidents and dust storms, though previous researchers have conflicting conclusions because of the evaluation of variables in other ways. Despite, being a large study in its field, this study faces several limitations originating from varied NWS records uncertain identification of storms for zip codes, and the impact of ecological fallacies. It highlights the communities for better preparation and training about health hazards that would emerge during dust storm occurrences.
References: Zheng X, Chang HH, Ebelt ST, D’Souza R, Hohsfield K, Crooks JL. Dust storms and emergency department visits in 3 southwestern states using NWS storm reports. JAMA Netw Open. 2025;8(2):e2457666. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.57666
