TY - JOUR T1 - Relationship between flood severity and risk of hospitalisation in the Mekong River Delta of Vietnam JF - Occupational and Environmental Medicine JO - Occup Environ Med DO - 10.1136/oemed-2021-107768 SP - oemed-2021-107768 AU - Dung T Phung AU - Joshua L Warren AU - Cordia Ming-Yeuk Chu AU - Robert Dubrow Y1 - 2021/07/18 UR - http://oem.bmj.com/content/early/2021/07/18/oemed-2021-107768.abstract N2 - Objective To examine the relationship between flood severity and risk of hospitalisation in the Vietnam Mekong River Delta (MRD).Methods We obtained data on hospitalisations and hydro-meteorological factors during 2011–2014 for seven MRD provinces. We classified each day into a flood-season exposure period: the 2011 extreme annual flood (EAF); 2012–2014 routine annual floods (RAF); dry season and non-flood wet season (reference period). We used province-specific Poisson regression models to calculate hospitalisation incidence rate ratios (IRRs). We pooled IRRs across provinces using random-effects meta-analysis.Results During the EAF, non-external cause hospitalisations increased 7.2% (95% CI 3.2% to 11.4%); infectious disease hospitalisations increased 16.4% (4.3% to 29.8%) and respiratory disease hospitalisations increased 25.5% (15.5% to 36.4%). During the RAF, respiratory disease hospitalisations increased 8.2% (3.2% to 13.5%). During the dry season, hospitalisations decreased for non-external causes and for each specific cause except injuries.Conclusions We observed a gradient of decreasing risk of hospitalisation from EAF to RAF/non-flood wet season to dry season. Adaptation measures should be strengthened to prepare for the increased probability of more frequent extreme floods in the future, driven by climate change.Data are available on reasonable request. ER -