A. Christmas Day, Dec. 26 and New Year's Day are the deadliest days of the year, says Patrick Remington, professor of population health sciences at UW-Madison. Nationwide, the mortality rate is about 5 percent higher on these days.

Why? "The best guess is that it's a combination of three factors," he said.

People may actually be at increased risk of dying, due to stress, overeating, exertion or substance abuse, he says. People also may be reluctant to visit the hospital on the holidays.

"If you feel a little bit of chest pain on Jan. 25, you might seek care right away, but on Christmas, you may think, I'm not going to bother anybody today,'" Remington said.

Indeed, statistics show that on these holidays, more people die before they reach the hospital. "That suggests that people may not be seeking care for symptoms that might be treatable," said Remington, who directs the UW Population Health Institute.

The third possibility, he says, is that "the quality of care is not as good as might be expected on those days." The medical personnel who get stuck working Christmas day may be "the more junior people, and there might be fewer staff than needed" in the hospital.

Unfortunately, existing studies cannot place blame for the excess deaths, Remington said, because they are "observational. They do not explain what we see."

But before you schedule an ambulance for your next Christmas dinner, remember that about 123 people die on the average day in Wisconsin, and the statistic suggests that an additional five or six people may die, statewide, on Christmas.

"It's not exactly an epidemic," Remington said.

-- Produced in cooperation with University Communications

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