Exposure to cold temperatures, winter weather conditions, or cold water can have negative impacts on your health. Cold-related illness includes many health problems such as hypothermia, frostbite, trench foot, or chilblains, that occur when the body becomes too cold. While these health problems are most likely at very cold temperatures, they can occur even at cool temperatures if a person becomes cold from wind, rain, sweat, or water.
For more information, visit MN Public Health Data Access: Cold-related Illness.
Data Notes
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The counts are not whole numbers due to how county was determined. To calculate the number of counts per county, we used zip codes to determine the corresponding county for each case. Some zip codes in Minnesota cross county boundaries, so a weighted method was used to split cases. For example, in the zip code 56318, 60% of people live in Todd County and 40% live in Morrison County. Thus, a hospitalization or ED visit with this zip code would add 0.6 count to Todd County and 0.4 to Morrison County. This ensures that each county is represented as accurately as possible given we only have access to zip code information.
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Total population is the combined population for the years indicated from the US Census Bureau's Population Estimates Program (5- or 10-year combined total population).
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To allow visualization of more county data than viewing data in one-year segments would allow, data are aggregated into 5- or 10-year time periods.
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To protect privacy, cold-related illness hospitalization or emergency department counts less than 6 are “suppressed” if the underlying population is less than 100,000 people. Geographies with suppressed data are greyed out on the map, indicated by two asterisks (**) in the table, and pop-up window and identified as “data not shown.”
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Age-adjusted rates based on counts less than 20 should be interpreted with caution – the rate may not be reliable because it can change dramatically with the addition or subtraction of a single case. Geographies considered to have an “unstable rate” are indicated by a single asterisk (*) in the table and pop-up window.
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These data include Minnesota residents discharged from hospitals in Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Iowa. However, Minnesota residents who sought care at Wisconsin hospitals are not included, so rates for counties bordering Wisconsin may be underestimated.
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These data do not include hospitalizations from Veterans Affairs or Indian Health Service hospitals.
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For additional information about the data, visit About the Cold-related Illness Data.
Data Sources
- US Census Bureau
- Minnesota Hospital Association
The Minnesota Department of Health does not guarantee the geographic accuracy or completeness of mapped boundaries and features. Geographic boundaries on this map are subject to periodic updates (e.g., zip code boundaries and census tracts change over time) and may vary across sources.