Browse
Submit Data
Databases
API
Help

Dataset Information

41 Views

0 Connections

0 Citations

0 Reanalyses

0 Downloads

Omics score: 0

Epidemics after natural disasters.

ABSTRACT: The relationship between natural disasters and communicable diseases is frequently misconstrued. The risk for outbreaks is often presumed to be very high in the chaos that follows natural disasters, a fear likely derived from a perceived association between dead bodies and epidemics. However, the risk factors for outbreaks after disasters are associated primarily with population displacement. The availability of safe water and sanitation facilities, the degree of crowding, the underlying health status of the population, and the availability of healthcare services all interact within the context of the local disease ecology to influence the risk for communicable diseases and death in the affected population. We outline the risk factors for outbreaks after a disaster, review the communicable diseases likely to be important, and establish priorities to address communicable diseases in disaster settings.

SUBMITTER: Watson JT

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2725828 | biostudies-literature | 2007 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Json Xml

Publications

Epidemics after natural disasters.

Watson John T JT Gayer Michelle M Connolly Maire A MA

Emerging infectious diseases 20070101 1

The relationship between natural disasters and communicable diseases is frequently misconstrued. The risk for outbreaks is often presumed to be very high in the chaos that follows natural disasters, a fear likely derived from a perceived association between dead bodies and epidemics. However, the risk factors for outbreaks after disasters are associated primarily with population displacement. The availability of safe water and sanitation facilities, the degree of crowding, the underlying health ...[more]

PMID: 17370508

Similar Datasets

Ecological Threats and Cultural Systems : Epidemics and Natural Disasters Do Not Predict Collectivism.

Project description:Considering the role of human interactions in infectious disease outbreaks and cooperation in mitigating natural disasters consequences, ecological threats to human survival have been among proposed drivers of collectivism. Utilizing established and novel measures of parasite stress and natural disasters, we investigated their association with collectivism in a large sample of countries (N = 188). Linear mixed-effect models indicated that after controlling for national wealth, neither natural disasters nor infectious disease can predict collectivism scores. Null results were consistent across different measures of threats, suggesting that previous findings can be attributed to small, non-representative samples of cultures. When universal patterns are a major concern, drawing conclusions based on small, nonrepresentative subsets of cultures risks promoting unreliable findings. Future cross-cultural research will benefit from data-driven exploratory methods to uncover factors previously unexamined in the theory-driven studies of collectivism.

| S-EPMC11835910 | biostudies-literature

Natural disasters and indicators of social cohesion.

Project description:Do adversarial environmental conditions create social cohesion? We provide new answers to this question by exploiting spatial and temporal variation in exposure to earthquakes across Chile. Using a variety of methods and controlling for a number of socio-economic variables, we find that exposure to earthquakes has a positive effect on several indicators of social cohesion. Social cohesion increases after a big earthquake and slowly erodes in periods where environmental conditions are less adverse. Our results contribute to the current debate on whether and how environmental conditions shape formal and informal institutions.

| S-EPMC5462365 | biostudies-literature

Natural disasters and population mobility in Bangladesh.

Project description:The consequences of environmental change for human migration have gained increasing attention in the context of climate change and recent large-scale natural disasters, but as yet relatively few large-scale and quantitative studies have addressed this issue. We investigate the consequences of climate-related natural disasters for long-term population mobility in rural Bangladesh, a region particularly vulnerable to environmental change, using longitudinal survey data from 1,700 households spanning a 15-y period. Multivariate event history models are used to estimate the effects of flooding and crop failures on local population mobility and long-distance migration while controlling for a large set of potential confounders at various scales. The results indicate that flooding has modest effects on mobility that are most visible at moderate intensities and for women and the poor. However, crop failures unrelated to flooding have strong effects on mobility in which households that are not directly affected but live in severely affected areas are the most likely to move. These results point toward an alternate paradigm of disaster-induced mobility that recognizes the significant barriers to migration for vulnerable households as well their substantial local adaptive capacity.

| S-EPMC3341015 | biostudies-literature

Cholera epidemics, war and disasters around Goma and Lake Kivu: an eight-year survey.

Project description:BackgroundDuring the last eight years, North and South Kivu, located in a lake area in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, have been the site of a major volcano eruption and of numerous complex emergencies with population displacements. These conditions have been suspected to favour emergence and spread of cholera epidemics.Methodology/principal findingsIn order to assess the influence of these conditions on outbreaks, reports of cholera cases were collected weekly from each health district of North Kivu (4,667,699 inhabitants) and South Kivu (4,670,121 inhabitants) from 2000 through 2007. A geographic information system was established, and in each health district, the relationships between environmental variables and the number of cholera cases were assessed using regression techniques and time series analysis. We further checked for a link between complex emergencies and cholera outbreaks. Finally, we analysed data collected during an epidemiological survey that was implemented in Goma after Nyiragongo eruption. A total of 73,605 cases and 1,612 deaths of cholera were reported. Time series decomposition showed a greater number of cases during the rainy season in South Kivu but not in North Kivu. Spatial distribution of cholera cases exhibited a higher number of cases in health districts bordering lakes (Odds Ratio 7.0, Confidence Interval range 3.8-12.9). Four epidemic reactivations were observed in the 12-week periods following war events, but simulations indicate that the number of reactivations was not larger than that expected during any random selection of period with no war. Nyiragongo volcanic eruption was followed by a marked decrease of cholera incidence.Conclusion/significanceOur study points out the crucial role of some towns located in lakeside areas in the persistence of cholera in Kivu. Even if complex emergencies were not systematically followed by cholera epidemics, some of them enabled cholera spreading.

| S-EPMC2677153 | biostudies-literature

Public health implications of complex emergencies and natural disasters.

Project description:During the last decade, conflict or natural disasters have displaced unprecedented numbers of persons. This leads to conditions prone to outbreaks that imperil the health of displaced persons and threaten global health security. Past literature has minimally examined the association of communicable disease outbreaks with complex emergencies (CEs) and natural disasters (NDs).To examine this association, we identified CEs and NDs using publicly available datasets from the Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters and United Nations Flash and Consolidated Appeals archive for 2005-2014. We identified outbreaks from World Health Organization archives. We compared findings to identify overlap of outbreaks, including their types (whether or not of a vaccine-preventable disease), and emergency event types (CE, ND, or Both) by country and year using descriptive statistics and measure of association.There were 167 CEs, 912 NDs, 118 events linked to 'Both' types of emergencies, and 384 outbreaks. Of CEs, 43% were associated with an outbreak; 24% NDs were associated with an outbreak; and 36% of 'Both' types of emergencies were associated with an outbreak. Africa was disproportionately affected, where 67% of total CEs, 67% of 'Both' events (CE and ND), and 46% of all outbreaks occurred for the study period. The odds ratio of a vaccine-preventable outbreak occurring in a CE versus an ND was 4.14 (95% confidence limits 1.9, 9.4).CEs had greater odds of being associated with outbreaks compared with NDs. Moreover, CEs had high odds of a vaccine-preventable disease causing that outbreak. Focusing on better vaccine coverage could reduce CE-associated morbidity and mortality by preventing outbreaks from spreading.

| S-EPMC5706345 | biostudies-literature

Natural disasters and nontuberculous mycobacteria: a recipe for increased disease?

Project description:Infectious diseases acquired by survivors of large-scale natural disasters complicate the recovery process. During events such as tsunamis, hurricanes, earthquakes, and tornados and well into the recovery period, victims often are exposed to water-soil mixtures that have relocated with indigenous microbes. Because nontuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) are ubiquitous in water and soil, there is potential for increased exposure to these organisms during natural disasters. In this hypothesis-driven commentary, we discuss the rise in NTM lung disease and natural disasters and examine the geographic overlap of NTM infections and disaster frequencies in the United States. Moreover, we show an increased number of positive NTM cultures from Louisiana residents in the years following three of the relatively recent epic hurricanes and posit that such natural disasters may help to drive the increased number of NTM infections. Finally, we advocate for increased environmental studies and surveillance of NTM infections before and after natural disasters.

| S-EPMC4502755 | biostudies-other

The influence of natural disasters and multiple natural disasters on self-harm and suicidal behaviour: findings from a nationally representative cohort study of Australian adolescents.

Project description:Few studies have examined the relationship between exposure to natural hazards and suicide and self-harm in youth. We extend prior research by investigating the association between multiple disasters and the risks of self-harm and suicide longitudinally in a nationally representative longitudinal cohort of adolescents 14 to 15 years to 18-19 years of age. Natural disasters were identified through parental self-reports for the local area. Different types of multiple disaster exposures were investigated including compound disasters (two or more disasters occurring in the last 12 months), cascading disasters (a disaster that leads to another disaster in the subsequent wave) and consecutive disasters (multiple disasters within the last two years or over an eight-year period). Using 8,714 person-waves of data from 2,908 adolescents, findings from random effect models suggest that parental reports of fire or floods increase the risk of self-harm ideation, self-harm, and suicidal ideation. Compound disasters of fire/flood and drought were also associated with increased risk of suicidal thoughts. Cascading disasters of drought followed by fire/flood increased the risks of self-harm but recurrent consecutive droughts were associated with lower risks of suicidal ideation. Australian adolescents are exposed to high rates of natural disasters that increase the risk of self-harm and thoughts of self-harm and suicide. Climate change will increase risk of natural disaster exposure for all countries. Despite these increased risks, there was resilience to disaster exposure particularly in the case of recurrent drought suggesting that youth, families and communities may well develop protective strategies to support mental health.

| S-EPMC10788300 | biostudies-literature

Introduction and validation of the Natural Disasters Picture System (NDPS).

Project description:Given the growing demand for studies dealing with natural disasters, the research fields of emotion and social cognition require validated picture stimuli of natural hazards. Such material is essential for studying perceptual processes and behaviors of exposed individuals, and it could find practical applications, such as the improvement of communication strategies during crises. We present the Natural Disasters Picture System (NDPS), a database of pictures of natural hazards, with an emphasis on volcanic threats, and their impact on the environment and humans. We first describe in detail the picture selection and database creation. We then report the validation procedure. One hundred twenty participants rated the pictures on the basis of four dimensions: valence, arousal, dominance and certainty. For each picture, we ultimately determined the best-fitting emotion on the basis of its dimensional pattern. The Hierarchical Ascendant Classification, which yielded 4 clusters subdivided into 9 classes, indicated a highly consistent and distinctive classification of the pictures. Overall, 90% of the pictures elicited negative emotions (fear or sadness), and the other 10% induced neutral to positive emotions (e.g., aesthetic emotions). The NDPS offers a new tool for studying natural events and disasters in the field of affective and cognitive sciences, which will benefit from scientific research and its practical applications. The NDPS is unrestrictedly accessible for researchers.

| S-EPMC6082542 | biostudies-literature

Hurricanes and hashtags: Characterizing online collective attention for natural disasters.

Project description:We study collective attention paid towards hurricanes through the lens of n-grams on Twitter, a social media platform with global reach. Using hurricane name mentions as a proxy for awareness, we find that the exogenous temporal dynamics are remarkably similar across storms, but that overall collective attention varies widely even among storms causing comparable deaths and damage. We construct 'hurricane attention maps' and observe that hurricanes causing deaths on (or economic damage to) the continental United States generate substantially more attention in English language tweets than those that do not. We find that a hurricane's Saffir-Simpson wind scale category assignment is strongly associated with the amount of attention it receives. Higher category storms receive higher proportional increases of attention per proportional increases in number of deaths or dollars of damage, than lower category storms. The most damaging and deadly storms of the 2010s, Hurricanes Harvey and Maria, generated the most attention and were remembered the longest, respectively. On average, a category 5 storm receives 4.6 times more attention than a category 1 storm causing the same number of deaths and economic damage.

| S-EPMC8153433 | biostudies-literature

Prevalence of Tuberculosis in Children After Natural Disasters, Bohol, Philippines.

Project description:In 2013, a severe earthquake and typhoon affected Bohol, Philippines. To assess the postdisaster risk for emergence of Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection in children, we conducted a cross-sectional multistage cluster study to estimate the prevalence of tuberculin skin test (TST) positivity and tuberculosis (TB) in children from 200 villages in heavily affected and less affected disaster areas. Of the 5,476 children we enrolled, 355 were TST-positive (weighted prevalence 6.4%); 16 children had active TB. Fourteen (7%) villages had >20% TST-positive prevalence. Although prevalence did not differ significantly between heavily affected and less affected areas, living in a shelter with >25 persons approached significance. TST positivity was independently associated with older age, prior TB treatment, known contact with a person with TB, and living on a geographically isolated island. We found a high TST-positive prevalence, suggesting that national programs should consider the differential vulnerability of children and the role of geographically isolated communities in TB emergence.

| S-EPMC6759243 | biostudies-literature

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

OmicsDI is an Elixir interoperability service. Learn more ›

Tweets

OmicsDI Databases

PRIDE
PeptideAtlas
MassIVE
JPOST Repository
Physiome Model Repository

EGA
EVA
ENA
LINCS
PAXDB
Cell Collective

MetaboLights
Metabolomics Workbench
MetabolomeExpress
GNPS
BioModels
FAIRDOMHub

ArrayExpress
dbGaP
ExpressionAtlas
GEO
NODE

Information

Databases
Help
API
Contact us
Code on GitHub
Terms of use
Submit Data