Dialogue: Red Sox study hits a home run
John Brownstein, PhD, Ben Reis, PhD, and Ken Mandl, MD, on the connection between Emergency Department visits and baseball
Like almost everyone else in Boston during last year's World Series, John Brownstein, PhD, and Ben Reis, PhD, of Children's Informatics Program and Division of Emergency Medicine were gripped by Red Sox fever. Being researchers, they had the same thought almost simultaneously: Might Red Sox games be affecting emergency-department (ED) volume around town? They had a ready way to find out—the ED's real-time disease surveillance system, known as AEGIS—and decided to tap it.
After a week of late nights crunching data, they discerned a clear pattern: the hotter the game (as determined by local TV Nielsen ratings), the quieter the ED. During games 3 and 4 of the playoffs, when the Red Sox faced elimination by the Yankees, Nielsen ratings dipped and ED volume in Greater Boston was about 15 percent higher than expected. But after the Red Sox won game 4, Nielsen ratings surged, and EDs began to empty out. During the highest-rated games—the game 7 of the playoffs and the World Series-clinching game 4—fully 55’Äì60 percent of Boston-area households were tuned in, and ED visits dipped about 15 percent below normal.
The study—released September 26, just as the Red Sox and Yankees were battling neck-and-neck to enter the playoffs—unleashed a media storm. Outlets included Newsweek, USA Today, The New York Times, The Boston Globe, the Associated Press, The Washington Post, New Scientist, WBUR's "Here and Now," Salon.com and TV broadcasts locally and nationally. Even the Red Sox had their say: Chief Executive Larry Lucchino emailed Bloomberg News, "Clearly, this study demonstrates that the Red Sox winning is good for the health of Western civilization."
Children's News spoke to Brownstein, Reis and senior investigator Ken Mandl, MD, MPH, an attending physician in Emergency Medicine—about the study and the media blitz that was still ongoing at press time.
Why did you focus on the World Series and not the Superbowl? After all, the Patriots won last year.
Reis: For two reasons. It's already been shown that there are no patients in the ED on Superbowl Sunday. But in baseball it's a best-of-7 series, which allowed us to show a linear relationship over time. The other reason was that while Boston fans are loyal to all their teams, their allegiance to the Red Sox is a level above everything else. If we were going to look for an effect on emergency-room volume, it would have to be the Sox.
Was this just a fun study, or are the findings actually a bit concerning?
Mandl: Although we didn't look at diagnoses in this study, the public health finding here was that people use discretion in deciding when show up in the ED.
What was the media experience like?
Reis: There was interest from a lot of circles with the Red Sox breaking the Curse last year. It was pretty crazy in the office—every hour someone would come in saying, "Hey, we're on the front page of CNN.com," or "Nature wants to talk to us." There were TV crews waiting for us in one place, radio crews waiting in another and newspaper reporters on the phone wanting to talk to us.
Brownstein: We compared the coverage to a disease outbreak. One outlet broke the embargo, then all of a sudden it raced through all the media outlets, from the daily papers to television to the weekly papers. It was so well timed—people were ready for a story related to the Red Sox.
Did you worry about your message getting distorted?
Brownstein: It's been educational, learning how to deal with the media and making sure what you're saying is the right thing, because it can really get spun into the opposite of what you're trying to say. But this was a fun study, so I was able to go with the flow, even when they were saying things like, "Red Sox fever is good for you." We took it seriously at first, but I was kind of hamming it up by the end.
Reis: The folks in Public Affairs were very helpful and made the experience smooth for all of us. They also made sure to prep us for all the different types of media.
What was the highlight?
Reis: We got all sorts of interesting emails from people all over the world. I also heard from friends I hadn't heard from in years.
Brownstein: The story was picked up by my hometown paper in Montreal, where my whole family could see it. But the end-all was being interviewed live from Fenway Park by ESPN—and hoping for some free tickets.
Will you be repeating the study this year?
Brownstein: Absolutely. With the Sox and Yankees both back in the playoffs, we want to see if the trends in ED use hold up over time.
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