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Masking for COVID-19 Is Associated with Decreased Emergency Department Utilization for Non-COVID Viral Illnesses and Respiratory Conditions in Maryland
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

Masking for COVID-19 Is Associated with Decreased Emergency Department Utilization for Non-COVID Viral Illnesses and Respiratory Conditions in Maryland

Zachary D.W. Dezman, Benoit Stryckman, Kori S. Zachrison, Ryan M. Conrad, David Marcozzi, Laura Pimentel, Margaret Samuels-Kalow and Charles B. Cairns
The American journal of medicine, v 134(10), pp 1247-1251
01 Oct 2021
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amjmed.2021.06.008
PMID: 34242620
Featured in Collection :   UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel
url
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amjmed.2021.06.008View
Published, Version of Record (VoR)Open Access (License Unspecified),  Open

Abstract

COVID Emergency medicine Epidemiology Public health
Masking, which is known to decrease the transmission of respiratory viruses, was not widely practiced in the United States until the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. This provides a natural experiment to determine whether the percentage of community masking was associated with decreases in emergency department (ED) visits due to non-COVID viral illnesses (NCVIs) and related respiratory conditions. In this observational study of ED encounters in a 11-hospital system in Maryland during 2019-2020, year-on-year ratios for all complaints were calculated to account for “lockdowns” and the global drop in ED visits due to the pandemic. Encounters for specific complaints were identified using the International Classification of Diseases, version 10. Encounters with a positive COVID test were excluded. Linear regression was used to determine the association of publicly available masking data with ED visits for NCVI and exacerbations of asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), after adjusting for patient age, sex, and medical history. There were 285,967 and 252,598 ED visits across the hospital system in 2019 and 2020, respectively. There was a trend toward an association between the year-on-year ratio for all ED visits and the Maryland stay-at-home order (parameter estimate = -0.0804, P = .10). A 10% percent increase in the prevalence of community masking was associated with a 17.0%, 8.8%, and 9.4% decrease in ED visits for NCVI and exacerbations of asthma exacerbations and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, respectively (P < .001 for all). Increasing the prevalence of masking is associated with a decrease in ED visits for viral illnesses and exacerbations of asthma and COPD. These findings may be valuable for future public health responses, particularly in future pandemics with respiratory transmission or in severe influenza seasons.

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8 Record Views
18 citations in Web of Science
20 citations in Scopus

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UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

This publication has contributed to the advancement of the following goals:

#3 Good Health and Well-Being

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Collaboration types
Domestic collaboration
Web of Science research areas
Medicine, General & Internal
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