In the latest research to suggest why men don't live as long as women, a University of Pittsburgh epidemiologist has found that males are roughly twice as likely as females to get killed during thunderstorms.
Of the 1,442 thunderstorm-related deaths in the United States between 1994 and 2000, 65 percent of the victims were men. Two-thirds of the deaths occurred outside the home and, in those cases, 70 percent of the victims were men, said Thomas J. Songer, assistant professor of epidemiology at the Graduate School of Public Health. The average age of those killed by thunderstorms was 36.
Songer presented his results yesterday at a national injury prevention conference in Atlanta.
Thunderstorm deaths don't happen every day, of course. While there are more than 100,000 annually in the United States, the flash floods, lightning and tornadoes they generate result in about 290 deaths a year, according to the National Weather Service.
In Pennsylvania, 48 thunderstorm-related deaths were recorded between 1994 and 2000, including 18 caused by flash floods and 14 by lightning. Another nine were caused by high winds and seven by tornadoes.
Songer undertook the project to resolve what he perceived as contradictory messages about what people should do if they're caught in a thunderstorm: To avoid lightning strikes, people are told to seek low ground and stay in vehicles, he said; to avoid flash flood, they are told to seek high ground and stay out of vehicles.
"All of these things can happen in a thunderstorm, so what are you supposed to do?" said Songer, who works at Pitt's Center for Injury Research and Control. "Everybody looks at lightning by itself or tornadoes by themselves or flash floods by themselves. But they all have a common element in that they stem from thunderstorms."
Unfortunately, the new statistical analysis doesn't clearly indicate which message is better to send, Songer said. The death rates from flash floods and lightning are too similar.
"My first approach at it is: Stay low and look for water," Songer said.
Stephan Kuhl, national warning coordination meteorologist at National Weather Service headquarters in Washington, D.C., said the first priority for people caught by storms is to seek shelter in a building. If that's impossible, getting inside a car or truck with a metal top and sides is the next best option. Don't seek shelter in a dugout, gazebo or picnic shelter, he said.
"As a last resort, if you have no car, no building, and you're really caught out in the open, squat down on the balls of your feet and cover your ears," he said. Nearby thunder can rupture eardrums and resting on the balls of the feet minimizes contact with the ground.
"If you're lying flat on your stomach, your whole body is in contact with the ground and more of that electricity will flow through you" if lightning strikes the ground nearby, Kuhl said.
Neither Kuhl nor Songer could offer a definitive explanation for the gender gap revealed by the new study.
Thunderstorm-related deaths often involve people who are seated in vehicles or playing sports. Men might be somewhat more likely than women to be on the playing field when a storm hits, Songer said, but the car connection is less clear.
Could the gender difference be explained by other studies about men's health attitudes?
Women outlive men by an average of six years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Healthy People 2010 report. While biological differences account for some of that, attitudes about risk and tending to health concerns are also factors.
A 1999 report from the Allegheny County Health Department suggests that perceptions of invulnerability may lead men to engage in more risky behaviors than women.
That could fit with the thunderstorm research, Songer speculated, because many flash flood deaths involve vehicles attempting to drive through standing water.
"Maybe men are more of the risk takers in that particular situation," he said.
Christopher Snowbeck can be reached at csnowbeck@post-gazette.com or 412-263-2625.
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