Background: This study was a retrospective study conducted at the Children’s Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota. It looked at 5 years of medical record to explore the role of climate and painful events in sickle cell disease.
Methods: The study looked at medical records between 1st January 2003 and 31st December 2008.
Results: The results showed that mean number of painful crises varied over the months ranging from 41 (August – December) to 79 (May). There was correlation between wider temperature variations and painful episodes. Also months with higher average wind speeds demonstrated higher frequency of painful episodes.
Discussion: Climate and sickle cell disease health have a correlation and wind speed is the most significant. Families need to know and so do patients.

The researchers for this study were: Arianna Lund and Stephen Nelson of the Pediatric Hematology Department of the Children’s Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota, Minneapolis and St Paul, Minnesota,USA.

This poster was presented at the Florida PASS Sickle Cell Conference, in Ft Lauderdale in March, 2009.
You can join Dr Nelson and other experts here for more detailed discussion of the research findings and its implications.

Dr Nelson gave an update to families during the bi-annual sickle cell update of the Hematology Department of Children’s Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota on  9th of May 2009 at Children’s Hospital Minneapolis. The title was A Report from the Annual National Sickle Cell Disease Scientific Meeting. It was well attended. At that meeting, SCDAM also addressed the participants and new volunteers joined our advocacy group. The next family Seminar will hold on the 10th of October 2009. The Title is Home Strategies for Pain Control. What Can we do at home?

Download zipped poster here: Weather and Sickle cell Disease