High-Amplitude Atlantic Hurricanes Produce Disparate Mortality in Small, Low-Income Countries

Abstract

Lower per capita GDP and higher wind speeds were associated with greater mortality rates in small countries. Excessive fatalities occurred when powerful storms struck resource-poor nations. Predictions of increasing storm amplitude over time suggest increasing disparity between death rates unless steps are taken to modify the risk profiles of poor nations. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2016;10:832-837).

Climate Change–Related Water Disasters’ Impact on Population Health

“…Susceptibility of individuals, communities, and countries was described in many of the articles. Risk factors that increase susceptibility to greater impact from CCRWDs include living in poverty, living in unstable dwellings, and lacking access to health care (Alderman et al, 2012;Bloetscher et al, 2016;Burton et al, 2016;Dressler, Allison, Broach, Smith, & Milsten, 2016;Grabich, Horney, Konrad, & Lobdell, 2016;Khan, Gruebner, & Kraemer, 2014;Lane et al, 2013;Rodriguez-Llanes, Ranjan-Dash, Mukhopadhyay, & Guha-Sapir, 2016;Schmeltz et al, 2013;Srikuta, Inmuong, Inmuong, & Bradshaw, 2015). There is a strong correlation between social and health vulnerability as measured by lack of income, percentage of minority residents, lower educational attainment, lack of English fluency, low take up of medical services, age, and disability status (Bloetscher et al, 2016).…”

Human Vulnerability to Landslides

“…Within the critical inundation depths of 0.9-5.9 m, the overall mortality rate is 47%. While this is lower than global landslide mortality rates produced by other methods (Kennedy et al, 2016), it is high relative to other environmental hazards, reflecting the violent nature of landslide processes (Alderman et al, 2012;Alexander & Magni, 2013;Dresser et al, 2016;Kennedy et al, 2015). While the language colloquially used regarding landslide victims such as "buried alive" (e.g., Metivier-Hart, 2017) implies death by suffocation, traumatic injury is at least as common a cause of death.…”

State capacity and vulnerability to natural disasters

“…Felbermayr and Gröschl (2014) natural disasters world poverty (? ), institutions (+), trade (+) Huang (2014) floods China, Japan poverty (-then +) natural disasters Japan institutions (+) Muttarak and Lutz (2014) natural disasters case studies education (-) Rubin (2014) natural disasters Vietnam poverty (+), inequality (+) Zhang et al (2014) natural disasters China poverty (+) Zhou et al (2014) natural disasters China poverty (+), education (-), young (+), old (+) Jongman et al (2015) floods world poverty (+) Lim et al (2015) heat waves East Asia poverty (+) earthquakes Taiwan poverty (+), female (+), young (+), old (+) Lin (2015) natural disasters world democracy (-), institutions (-) Park et al (2015) hurricanes South Korea poverty (+), building codes (-) Toya and Skidmore (2015) natural disasters world ICT (-) Wen and Chang (2015) natural disasters world right-wing government (-) Austin and McKinney (2016) natural disasters world poverty (+), democracy (-), women's rights (-) natural disasters world insurance (-), institutions (-) Dresser et al (2016) hurricanes Atlantic poverty (+) Escaleras and Register (2016) natural disasters world corruption (+) 5 Klomp (2016) natural disasters world poverty (+) Peregrine (2017) natural disasters ancient societies democracy (-) Persson and Povitkina (2017) natural disasters world democracy (-), institutions (-) Tselios and Tompkins (2017) natural disasters world decentralization (+) Villagra and Quintana (2017) tsunami Chile institutions (-) Ward and Shively (2017) natural disasters world poverty (+) Zuo et al (2017) natural disasters world institutions (-) Albuquerque Sant'Anna ( 2018) floods Rio de Janeiro urban infrastructure (-) Enia (2018) natural disasters world rule of law (-) Hu et al (2018) floods world population density (+), poverty (+) earthquakes China public infrastructure (-), insurance (-) Peregrine (2018) natural disasters ancient societies democracy (-) Winsemius et al (2018) floods and droughts world poverty (+) Wu et al (2018) natural disasters China poverty (+)…”