Harvard T.H Chan School of Public Health, Imperial College London, Colorado State University, and the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University have looked into the hidden costs of weather-associated disasters such as extreme storms, tropical cyclones, and hurricanes.
Hidden reasons people were more likely to die from
The effects of these events may seem obvious to many people as they are immediate. These apparent effects are the loss of homes and lives. However, this study shows that there is more harm to the population.
The researchers concluded that 33% of deaths in the U.S months after hurricanes and tropical cyclones were indirectly linked to the events. After these tragic incidents, the number of people who died from injuries, infections, neuropsychiatric, cardiovascular, respiratory, and parasitic diseases increased.
From these numbers, researchers concluded that things did not go back to normal for months after a climate-related disaster. Instead, they continued to threaten the lives of human beings.
How researchers conducted the study
To come to their conclusion, researchers looked into 33.6 million deaths that occurred in the country between 1988 and 2018. From this data, they created a statistical model and calculated the fluctuation of death rates from the normal after a climate-related disaster.
The team found that the highest increase in death rate after such an event was due to injuries (33.4%. Other increases were in neuropsychiatric conditions (1.2%), heart diseases (1.2%), respiratory disorders (1.3%), and parasitic diseases (1.8%).
According to Robin Parks, a lead study author and scientist from Columbia University, tropical cyclones will continue to be relevant in public health. The reason is that there has been an increase in duration, frequency, and tropical cyclones in recent years.
Parks adds that their data proves that the effects of these weather disasters are detrimental to the human population for longer than people initially thought. Moreover, they will be a more significant issue due to climate change.
Dr Parks states that these events mainly affect low-income and marginalised groups that live in areas prone to tropical cyclones. For this reason, understanding how these events affect them would help improve environmental justice.
Furthermore, women were more likely to die from injuries, while people aged 65 and above were generally most likely to die.
