Cold winters: More falls on snow and ice

LIVERPOOL, England, June 21 (UPI) -- The 2009-2010 winter in Britain had an average temperature of 35 degrees Fahrenheit, making it the coldest winter in the last 30 years, researchers say.

Researchers at the North West Public Health Observatory at the Liverpool John Moores University compared data from the Hospital Episode Statistics of emergency hospital admissions with weekly average temperature readings from Britain's Meteorological Office across England.

The results indicated hospital admissions due to falls on snow and ice increased with age and that men age 85 and older were especially vulnerable, with more than one in 1,000 likely to be admitted to hospital due to falls.

Of the five winters studied, 2009-2010 had the highest number of emergency admissions due to falls on snow and ice, 18 times more than the lowest 2007-2008.

The study, published in the journal Environmental Health, found as temperatures dropped there was an exponential increase in the weekly rate of admissions due to falls.

"The total cost of these accidents to the health services is like to be much higher than reported here," Dr. Caryl Beynon said in a statement. "This is because the calculation does not include patients who went to hospital but were not admitted, nor patients who went to their doctor or pharmacist, or visited a 'walk-in' center. It also does not address the long-term costs of rehabilitation or recuperation in a nursing home."