Use of emergency department and hospital inpatient services by Hurricane Katrina evacuees, Georgia, 2005

Following Hurricane Katrina, which made landfall in Louisiana (LA) on August 29, 2005, an estimated 125,000 LA and Mississippi (MS) residents evacuated to Georgia. We used data on emergency department (ED) visits and hospital admissions among LA/MS residents from Georgia's statewide hospital discharge database for 2004-5 to describe ED and hospital use in Georgia by evacuees. During January-July 2005, an average of 190 (range: 138-281) and 35 (range: 28-41) LA/MS residents, respectively, made ED visits or were admitted to Georgia hospitals per month. During September-December, the corresponding numbers of average monthly visits and admissions were 1,267 and 252, peaking at 2,903 ED visits and 614 hospitalizations in September. No comparable increase in healthcare use in Georgia was observed among LA/MS residents during this period in 2004 or among residents of other states during this period in 2005. In September, 2005, 72% of ED visits and 81% of hospitalizations among MS/LA residents, compared with 47% and 55%, respectively, in January-July, were at facilities in the 8 counties that comprise the core of the metropolitan Atlanta region. From January-July to September-December, the percentage of ED visits/hospitalizations statewide paid by Medicaid or Medicare increased from 15% to 23% and the percentage of ED visits/hospitalizations among African Americans increased from 36% to 66%. Much of the increase in use was due to chronic respiratory or cardiovascular conditions. These findings extend previous assessments of healthcare use by Katrina evacuees in Georgia and can be used to plan for future hurricane-related evacuations within or to Georgia.