Tornadoes and Health: A Quasi-Experimental Study of the Impact of Tornado Exposure on Medicare Utilization in the United States

Tornadoes are one of the most common and destructive natural disasters in the United States. Patterns of tornado exposure have been changing over the last 75 years, making it more important than ever for communities to have a concrete understanding of the ef- fects of tornado exposure on human health. Nevertheless, tornadoes remain understudied in the disaster epidemiology literature. This project aims to fill that gap by adopting a quasi-experimental study design to explore the effects of tornado exposure on all-cause and cause-specific hospitalization rates among the Medicare population in the United States from 1999-2022. Overall, tornado exposure was not associated with a significant change in all-cause hospitalization rates in the post-tornado period; however, rates of hospital- izations for respiratory conditions and accidents and injuries demonstrate a statistically significant increase in the week following tornado exposure. Additionally, increases in hos- pitalization rates for patients with digestive conditions and cancers were observed 3-4 weeks post-exposure. Finally, a dose-response relationship between effect magnitude and tornado magnitude was identified. This project represents the first longitudinal and national scale study of the health effects of tornado exposure.