The Boston Red Sox good for the health?
From my friend Emily: "Clearly, this study demonstrates that the Red Sox winning is good for the health of Western civilization"
Boston hospital visits down during 2004 Red Sox comeback
By BLOOMBERG NEWS
Published by news-press.com on September 28, 2005
Bostonians have known for almost a century that there is a link between the fortunes of their baseball team and the health of its fans.
Now, area hospitals have proof.
As the Boston Red Sox staged the greatest U.S. professional sports comeback in history to win baseball’s World Series last year, as many as 15 percent fewer people than expected visited local hospital emergency rooms, according to research published in the October issue of Annals of Emergency Medicine.
Fewer people sought treatment during the more popular and significant of 11 playoff and World Series games. The six hospitals studied, including Massachusetts General, registered the biggest decline during games seven of the American League Championship Series against the New York Yankees and game four of the World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals.
The Red Sox beat the Cardinals, four games to none, to win their first championship in 86 years that October.
“Clearly, this study demonstrates that the Red Sox winning is good for the health of Western civilization,” quipped Red Sox Chief Executive Larry Lucchino in an e-mail.
By checking TV ratings from Nielsen Media Research Inc., the researchers showed where potential emergency-room visitors were holed up: in front of their television sets.
“Bostonians stand behind all their teams, but allegiance to their baseball team is one level above,” said Ben Reis of Children’s Hospital’s Division of Emergency Medicine.
Reis, 30, who grew up in Brookline, Massachusetts, in the shadow of Fenway Park, where the Red Sox play, teamed with John Brownstein of the hospital’s informatics program to conduct the study. Both hold doctorate degrees.
Disease Tracking
After the historic win, the two had an idea to study Nielsen ratings and data from a system designed to track infectious disease outbreaks and bioterrorism. The Automated Epidemiological Geotemporal Integrated Surveillance system, or Aegis, tracks reports of infectious diseases among hospital emergency room patients and checks them against normal volume to alert public health officials to unexpected spikes or patterns.
Nielsen ratings during game seven of the championship series in New York and game four of the World Series in St. Louis showed that 55 percent to 60 percent of Boston-area households were watching TV.
“What this is really showing us is that there potentially is a discretionary part to emergency room visits,” said Brownstein, 28. “We’re not talking about gunshot wounds or car accidents but at the level of a really bad cold.”
Among the hospitals studied were Children’s, Cambridge and Beth Israel Deaconess.
No Post-Game Spikes
“As the game gets more serious or more important, the effect gets stronger in a linear fashion,” Brownstein said. “We didn’t see any spikes after the games in visits. What we assume is that people decided to wait.”
The research, overseen by Kenneth Mandl, an attending physician in Children’s Hospital’s Department of Emergency Medicine, was presented in a letter to the scientific journal.
An accompanying graph showed expected emergency-room visits, Nielsen ratings indicating the importance of the event and actual emergency-room visits during the 11 games.
During games three and four of the best-of-seven series against the Yankees, when it appeared the Sox would be eliminated in four straight games and fewer viewers were watching, emergency-room visits actually rose about 15 percent above the expected volume, the study showed.
The percentages were adjusted for time of day, day of week and seasonal factors such as flu that can cause spikes in visit rates.
This year, the Red Sox are in another tense race with the Yankees for a spot in the post-season playoffs. As of yesterday, with seven games to play in the regular season, Boston and New York were tied for the lead in the American League’s Eastern Division, both with records of 91-64. New York plays at Boston in the final three games.
Boston hospital visits down during 2004 Red Sox comeback
By BLOOMBERG NEWS
Published by news-press.com on September 28, 2005
Bostonians have known for almost a century that there is a link between the fortunes of their baseball team and the health of its fans.
Now, area hospitals have proof.
As the Boston Red Sox staged the greatest U.S. professional sports comeback in history to win baseball’s World Series last year, as many as 15 percent fewer people than expected visited local hospital emergency rooms, according to research published in the October issue of Annals of Emergency Medicine.
Fewer people sought treatment during the more popular and significant of 11 playoff and World Series games. The six hospitals studied, including Massachusetts General, registered the biggest decline during games seven of the American League Championship Series against the New York Yankees and game four of the World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals.
The Red Sox beat the Cardinals, four games to none, to win their first championship in 86 years that October.
“Clearly, this study demonstrates that the Red Sox winning is good for the health of Western civilization,” quipped Red Sox Chief Executive Larry Lucchino in an e-mail.
By checking TV ratings from Nielsen Media Research Inc., the researchers showed where potential emergency-room visitors were holed up: in front of their television sets.
“Bostonians stand behind all their teams, but allegiance to their baseball team is one level above,” said Ben Reis of Children’s Hospital’s Division of Emergency Medicine.
Reis, 30, who grew up in Brookline, Massachusetts, in the shadow of Fenway Park, where the Red Sox play, teamed with John Brownstein of the hospital’s informatics program to conduct the study. Both hold doctorate degrees.
Disease Tracking
After the historic win, the two had an idea to study Nielsen ratings and data from a system designed to track infectious disease outbreaks and bioterrorism. The Automated Epidemiological Geotemporal Integrated Surveillance system, or Aegis, tracks reports of infectious diseases among hospital emergency room patients and checks them against normal volume to alert public health officials to unexpected spikes or patterns.
Nielsen ratings during game seven of the championship series in New York and game four of the World Series in St. Louis showed that 55 percent to 60 percent of Boston-area households were watching TV.
“What this is really showing us is that there potentially is a discretionary part to emergency room visits,” said Brownstein, 28. “We’re not talking about gunshot wounds or car accidents but at the level of a really bad cold.”
Among the hospitals studied were Children’s, Cambridge and Beth Israel Deaconess.
No Post-Game Spikes
“As the game gets more serious or more important, the effect gets stronger in a linear fashion,” Brownstein said. “We didn’t see any spikes after the games in visits. What we assume is that people decided to wait.”
The research, overseen by Kenneth Mandl, an attending physician in Children’s Hospital’s Department of Emergency Medicine, was presented in a letter to the scientific journal.
An accompanying graph showed expected emergency-room visits, Nielsen ratings indicating the importance of the event and actual emergency-room visits during the 11 games.
During games three and four of the best-of-seven series against the Yankees, when it appeared the Sox would be eliminated in four straight games and fewer viewers were watching, emergency-room visits actually rose about 15 percent above the expected volume, the study showed.
The percentages were adjusted for time of day, day of week and seasonal factors such as flu that can cause spikes in visit rates.
This year, the Red Sox are in another tense race with the Yankees for a spot in the post-season playoffs. As of yesterday, with seven games to play in the regular season, Boston and New York were tied for the lead in the American League’s Eastern Division, both with records of 91-64. New York plays at Boston in the final three games.