Effect of extreme weather events on injury, disability, and death in Bangladesh

ABSTRACT

While there is increasing evidence on the trends and impacts of climate change, both globally and in Bangladesh, there is a limited quantitative analysis on the impacts of natural disasters on population health and the association with socio-economic characteristics. Using data from the ‘Bangladesh Disaster-Related Statistics-2015’, we assessed disaster-related health outcomes namely, injury, disability, and death. We applied three logistic regression models to examine the relationships between individual socio-economic characteristics, reported disaster-related injury, disability, and death. Our study found that 145.9 disaster-related injuries, 14.4 disabilities, and 21.0 deaths per 100,000 population were reported in Bangladesh over 2009–2014. Floods were responsible for the highest percentage of injury, disability, and death followed by thunderstorms. The elderly and children were more likely to suffer from disaster-related injuries compared to adults. Disaster preparedness was a protective factor for both disasters related injury and disability. We observed geographic variation in the number of injuries, disability, and death across the districts in Bangladesh. Policy-makers can use the study findings to strengthen risk-monitoring, assessment, and preparedness strategies and actions for extreme weather events related to the rapidly changing climate.

KEYWORDS:

• Natural disaster
• injury
• disability
• death
• thunderstorms
• Bangladesh

Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully acknowledge the support received from UKRI GCRF (UK Research and Innovation Global Challenges Research Fund) Living Deltas Hub, grant nr NE/S008926/1. The authors also would like to thank the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics for providing access to the Bangladesh Disaster-Related Statistics-2015 dataset. icddr,b is also thankful to the Governments of Bangladesh, Canada, Sweden, and the UK for providing core/unrestricted support

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sayem Ahmed

Dr. Sayem Ahmed is working as a Health Economist at Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, Liverpool. He has extensive experience in health economics research in developing countries. He completed his post-graduate research study (PhD in Health Economics) at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm. He published widely in health economics with a focus on cost-analysis, out-of-pocket payments, health insurance and inequality in healthcare in developing countries. He was a member of Bangladesh National Health Accounts Committee of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. He conducted several studies as a consultant of the World Health Organization and The World Bank. He taught health economics as an adjunct faculty at the Independent University of Bangladesh.

Md. Zahid Hasan

Mr. Md Zahid Hasan holds a graduate and a master degree in Health Economics from the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh. He started his research career as a Research Associate at the Institute of Health Economics, University of Dhaka. Currently, he is working as a Research Investigator with the Health Economics and Financing group under Health Systems and Population Studies Division at the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b). His research focuses on the field of costing; economic evaluation of health and nutrition interventions; healthcare financing; assessing- the effect of the health protection scheme, and health system efficiency.

Montira J. Pongsiri

Dr. Montira J. Pongsiri was the first Science Advisor at the U.S. Mission to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) where she led the Mission's efforts to apply science and technology to support ASEAN's sustainability goals and to strengthen the capacity of science-based policy-making through programs such as the ASEAN-U.S. Science and Technology Fellows Program and the ASEAN-U.S. sustainable cities partnership. She was an Environmental Health Scientist at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Office of Research and Development. At the EPA, Dr. Pongsiri developed and led a research initiative on biodiversity and human health which studied the links between anthropogenic stressors, changes in biodiversity, and infectious disease transmission. She was the agency's lead on technical partnerships with the Smithsonian Institution and with Rockefeller's 100 Resilient Cities Global Challenge. As a member of The Rockefeller Foundation-Lancet Commission on Planetary Health, Dr. Pongsiri brought expertise on environmental change-human disease linkages. Since departing Cornell University, Dr. Montira Pongsiri has been a Consultant on global environmental change and health. She currently serves on The Rockefeller Foundation- Boston University High-level Commission on Health Determinants, Data, and Decision-making. Dr. Pongsiri is an Associate at the Stockholm Environment Institute, Asia Centre, based in Bangkok, Thailand.

Mohammad Wahid Ahmed

Mr. Mohammad Wahid Ahmed is currently working as a Senior Research Officer in Health Economics and Finance Research Group under Health Systems and Population Studies Division at icddr,b. He obtained Master in Health Economics from Institute of Health Economics, University of Dhaka and Master in Environmental Economics from Dhaka School of Economics, University of Dhaka. He has more than eight years of research experience in the area of health economics and health system research in Bangladesh. Mr. Ahmed is also a teaching fellow at JPGSPH, BRAC University of Bangladesh. Mr. Ahmed published many scientific articles/working papers related to the cost of maternal, neonatal and child health and economics of the environment. His interest is to work with economic research studies directed to health systems and environmental impact.

Sylvia Szabo

Dr. Sylvia Szabo works as Assistant Professor in the Department of Development and Sustainability at the Asian Institute of Technology. Her current research focuses on investigating human-environment interactions in climate change hotspots. Dr. Szabo is a graduate of the University of Southampton, the London School of Economics, and Sorbonne University.