The epidemiological profile and morbidity-mortality patterns of the natural hazards-related disasters in the Americas from 2000 to 2021.

OBJECTIVE

To analyze the epidemiological profile of natural hazard-related disasters in the Americas between 2000 and 2021.

STUDY DESIGN

Cross-sectional study.

METHODS

Mean and standard deviation were used to calculate the mean rates of affected individuals, injuries, and mortality per year and per million inhabitants. The ANOVA test was applied between the calculated mean rates by type of disasters. Exponential smoothing was used to forecast the number of disasters up to the year 2026.

RESULTS

A total of 2045 natural hazard-related disasters were recorded. Of these, 81 (3.96 %) were biological, 199 (9.73 %) were climatological, 140 (6.85 %) were geophysical, 843 (41.22 %) were hydrological, and 782 (38.24 %) were meteorological. A statistically significant difference was observed between the mean injury rates per million inhabitants of natural hazard-related disasters (F = 3.40; p = 0.010). The mortality rate per million inhabitants (F = 0.43; p = 0.786) and the mean affected rate per million inhabitants (F = 0.68; p = 0.609) were not found to be statistically significant regarding the type of disaster. The results demonstrated no statistically significant decline in the mean rate of affected individuals per million inhabitants (tau = -0.086, p = 0.336), the mean mortality rate per million inhabitants (tau = -0.221, p = 0.159), and the mean rate of injuries per million inhabitants (tau = 0.169, p = 0.284).

CONCLUSIONS

Hydrological disasters had the highest mean mortality rate, biological disasters had the highest mean injury rate, and geophysical disasters had the highest mean rate of affected individuals.