Headlines - Spotlight on the "Hypothermia" Surveillance Indicator

As part of the "Extreme Cold and Health" initiative, the French Institute for Public Health Surveillance (InVS) is responsible for analyzing epidemiological data from specific and non-specific health surveillance systems and for alerting regional and national health authorities whenever the situation requires it. One of the indicators tracked through the SurSaUD® network during the winter season and presented weekly in our Epidemiological Bulletin is the number of emergency department visits for "Hypothermia." This indicator is a syndromic grouping of diagnoses that includes hypothermia (ICD-10 code T68) as well as frostbite (ICD-10 codes T33, T34, and T35) and other effects of a drop in temperature (ICD-10 code T69). Hypothermia is defined as an involuntary drop in the human body’s core temperature below 35°C. It results from a decrease in heat production, an increase in heat loss, or a dysfunction of thermoregulation.

In Poitou-Charentes, since the start of winter surveillance on October 1, 2012, 76 emergency department visits corresponding to the "Hypothermia" syndrome group have been recorded in SurSaUD® (see Figure p.6). Among these cases, hypothermia was diagnosed in 70 of them (92%) and 6 (5%) presented with frostbite. Approximately 41% of the cases resided in Charente, 26% in Vienne, 17% in Charente-Maritime, and 16% in Deux-Sèvres. The sex ratio was 1. The ages of the cases ranged from 13 to 91 years, with a median of 77 years. The peak in diagnosed cases was observed in January 2013 (approximately 47% of cases recorded since the start of surveillance).