Hurricanes are known to cause death And serious damage in their path, but new research suggests that major weather events like these are an indirect cause of thousands of additional deaths for years after a storm passes.
In the study published Wednesday in Nature, researchers at Stanford University found a “sharp increase in excess mortality” following tropical cyclones in the United States between 1930 and 2015. The authors also observed that the increase in Death persists for about 15 years after each weather event. .
Tropical cyclones are defined in the study as both hurricanes and tropical storms.
“In any given month, people die sooner than if the storm had not hit their community,” said the study’s lead author, Solomon Hsiang, a Stanford Doerr professor of environmental social sciences. School of Sustainability, in a press release. . “A big storm is going to hit, and there are all these cascades of effects: cities are rebuilding, households are displaced or social networks are broken. These cascades have serious consequences for public health.”
An average tropical cyclone in the United States indirectly causes 7,000 to 11,000 additional deaths, estimate Hsiang and the study’s lead author, Rachel Young.
According to the study, the health consequences for infants under one year old, people aged 1 to 44 years old and the black population were particularly affected.
“These are infants born years after a tropical cyclone, so they could not have experienced the event in utero themselves,” Young said. “This suggests an economic situation and maternal health A story where mothers might not have as many resources, even years after a disaster, as they would in a world where they never experienced a tropical cyclone. »
Researchers estimate that the current tropical cyclone climate in the border region of the United States imposes an annual burden of approximately 55,280 to 88,080 additional deaths. An average tropical cyclone in the United States indirectly causes between 7,000 and 11,000 additional deaths, they estimate.
“These results indicate (tropical cyclones) as an important and understudied contributor to health in the United States, particularly for young or black populations,” the authors note.
The study did not explore why exactly these storms appear to lead to excess deaths in the years following a major storm, but the authors shared some hypotheses, including the impact of economic disruption, increased physical and mental stress and changes in the natural environment.
“With climate change, we expect tropical cyclones to potentially become more dangerous, more damaging, and to change who they hit,” Young said.
