Frequency and Location of Mass Gathering Events in Relation to Emergency Departments: A Descriptive Study

As the number of mass gathering events increases, so too does the reliance on tertiary emergency healthcare services. Approximately 1% of event attendees may present to a local emergency department for clinical assessment and/or management. Often, these attendees are transported by ambulance services. The purpose of this study is to determine the frequency and location of events held in New South Wales (NSW), Australia. This information may be used by event and health service personnel to further inform event planning such as staffing, equipment and economic considerations when large events in the community occur. Methods This descriptive study used data scraping of an established data warehouse to identify events held in the 2017 calendar year by name, type, location (within the state of NSW) and duration. Using Google Maps, the distance and travel time between these events and the nearest emergency department (ED) was determined. Data was analysed using simple descriptive statistics. Results Of the 722 events in NSW analysed, 395 were single-day events. The majority of these were concerts (n=284, 39%), followed by festivals (n=259, 36%) and sporting events (n=176, 24%). The average distance and time to arrive at an ED from an event was 15.0 (±35.8) kilometres and 15.4 (±27.2) minutes, respectively. Conclusion Existing literature has highlighted that event attendees are regularly transported to emergency departments from events. This research has demonstrated that events occur frequently with varying vicinity to nearest EDs, with the majority of events occurring near territory care centres. However, there is limited research on the impact on emergency healthcare services resulting from an event.