Over recent decades, hurricanes and other tropical cyclones in the U.S. were associated with up to 33.4 percent higher death rates from several major causes in subsequent months.
Over recent decades, hurricanes and other tropical cyclones in the U.S. were associated with up to 33.4 percent higher death rates from several major causes in subsequent months.
This is the finding of research from Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, Colorado State University, Imperial College London, and Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, published in the journal JAMA.
The study exemplifies how far-reaching and varied the hidden costs to life could be from climate-related disasters and climate change.
Until now, there had been a critical knowledge gap about cause-specific tropical cyclone mortality risks from a large-scale study covering the entire U.S. across multiple decades.
After collecting 33.6 million U.S. death records from 1988 to 2018, the researchers used a statistical model to calculate how death rates changed after tropical cyclones and hurricanes (a subset of the strongest tropical cyclones) when compared to equivalent periods in other years.
The researchers found the largest overall increase in the month of hurricanes for injuries (33.4 percent), with increases in death rates in the month after tropical cyclones for injuries (3.7 percent), infectious and parasitic diseases (1.8 percent), respiratory diseases (1.3 percent), cardiovascular diseases (1.2 percent), and neuropsychiatric conditions (1.2 percent).
Residents of 1206 counties, covering half of the entire U.S. population, experienced at least one tropical cyclone during the study period. Tropical cyclones were most frequent in eastern and south-eastern coastal counties.
Read more at: Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health
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