Can severity of a humanitarian crisis be quantified? Assessment of the INFORM severity index.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Those responding to humanitarian crises have an ethical imperative to respond most where the need is greatest. Metrics are used to estimate the severity of a given crisis. The INFORM Severity Index, one such metric, has become widely used to guide policy makers in humanitarian response decision making. The index, however, has not undergone critical statistical review. If imprecise or incorrect, the quality of decision making for humanitarian response will be affected. This analysis asks, how precise and how well does this index reflect the severity of conditions for people affected by disaster or war?

Results

The INFORM Severity Index is calculated from 35 publicly available indicators, which conceptually reflect the severity of each crisis. We used 172 unique glo

SUBMITTER: Lopez VK 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9887746 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature