Epidemics after Natural Disasters

TLDR

Natural disasters are often thought to trigger epidemics, but the main drivers of outbreaks are population displacement, water and sanitation access, crowding, health status, and healthcare availability within the local disease ecology. The authors aim to identify the key risk factors for post‑disaster outbreaks, catalogue the most relevant communicable diseases, and prioritize interventions for disaster settings. They achieve this by systematically outlining risk factors, reviewing likely diseases, and establishing priority actions for managing communicable diseases after disasters.

Abstract

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.