United States: Florida is working hard to recover from the damage caused by Hurricane Milton, along with the effects of Hurricane Helene from two weeks ago. Studies show that these big storms can have serious long-term health effects.
A recent study published in the journal Nature looked at nearly 500 tropical storms from 1930 to 2015 in the U.S. and found that major storms can lead to thousands of extra deaths afterward and have lasting impacts on public health. It’s important to understand how these storms affect communities even after they are gone.
It’s not clear why some groups are experiencing an increase in deaths, but studies suggest that socioeconomics and infectious diseases and pressures from other diseases like heart disease and mental stress, too, could be behind it.
Young continued and explained: “We determine that, in fact there are increased mortality rate going as far as 15 years post-storm.”
As reported by the Yahoo News,” They cause between 7,000 to 11,000 deaths, which happen through several channels over many, many years and this is 300 times the reported deaths for each storm,” she added.
These figures can be translated as numbering between 55,280 and 88,080 in additional deaths annually. The study also concluded that hurricanes and all their consequences to let alone and the annual figures of hurricane and its aftereffects are estimated to have claimed more lives in the United States of America than all the recorded auto mobile accidents, epidemic and war related deaths adding up to between three point six million to five point two million.
A study that was done in the JAMA Journal in 2018 was conducted on Hurricane Maria which occurred in 2017 Andekk noted 1,139extra deaths compared to the 64that were officially decreed to have been caused by the storm.
Some prior research has established that tropical storms can cause up to a 10% rise in hospitalisations for older people most affected by respiratory and infections related complications.
Another problem or another study shows people with low income have reduced healthcare access and people of colour are exposed to hazardous pollution hence, more at risk of the storm’s initial impacts plus the consequences that follow.
Infants and the black communities are particularly at risk after the storm and the Nature study revealed and almost about 99 percent of the infant deaths happen more than 21 months later and the meaning even babies born after the storm are affected and additionally those in the Black communities’ face about three time the risk of the death compared to the white communities.
Although the Nature Study doesn’t specifically explore why these differences exist and the researchers are still working to a better understand the phenomenon.
We know that the Southeastern portion of the United States had elevated rates of mortality for infant and young populations as compared to the rest of the country.