Red Sox Lower Health Care Costs for Their Fans, Study Suggests

By Michael E. Kanell, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Oct. 2–This just in: Rooting for the Red Sox keeps people out of the hospital, one study suggests — and, by extension, lowers health care costs.

Of course you are skeptical. But it’s in the data.

Two researchers at Children’s Hospital Boston correlated the number of visits to emergency rooms with last year’s Red Sox appearances in playoff and World Series games. In October’s Annals of Emergency Medicine, John Brownstein and Ben Reis concur: The bigger the game, the fewer folks showed up in local ERs.

Suspense factors in. At its peak, the World Series had about six of every 10 Boston area households watching. During those times, up to 15 percent fewer people were checking into the ER.

(The two researchers correlated data gathered by the hospital with Nielsen television ratings.) It might be that during games, fans were more likely to be someplace they wouldn’t get hurt. The couch, for instance.

But the researchers were also inclined to see this as evidence that some number of ER visits really weren’t necessary. That is, a bunch of sick people said, “This can wait until after the game.”

No data were available on ninth-inning cardiac arrests.

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