Deaths from international terrorism compared with road crash deaths in OECD countries: Table 1

Abstract

Objective:To estimate the relative number of deaths in member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) from international terrorism and road crashes.Methods:Data on deaths from international terrorism (US State Department database) were collated (1994–2003) and compared to the road injury deaths (year 2000 and 2001 data) from the OECD International Road Transport Accident Database.Results:In the 29 OECD countries for which comparable data were available, the annual average death rate from road injury was approximately 390 times that from international terrorism. The ratio of annual road to international terrorism deaths (averaged over 10 years) was lowest for the United States at 142 times. In 2001, road crash deaths in the US were equal to those from a September 11 attack every 26 days.Conclusions:There is a large difference in the magnitude of these two causes of deaths from injury. Policy makers need to be aware of this when allocating resources to preventing these two avoidable causes of mortality.

Epidemiological patterns of suicide terrorism in the civilian Pakistani population

“…Nine of 10 people injured in such attacks were civilians. In nine Pakistani districts, including the capital Islamabad, civilian mortality rates were 10 or more times higher than that due to such mechanisms in USA during the 1994-2002 period (Wilson & Thomson, 2005a). These attacks resulted in over two times more civilian injuries than deaths.…”

“…This showed that mortality estimates might be adequate but that morbidity was underestimated in this study. This study showed that suicide terrorism has resulted in high mortality and morbidity in certain regions of Pakistan (Wilson & Thomson, 2005a). The rate of injury was over twice that of mortality, and it is highly likely that those who were injured may develop disability due to the severe nature of the injuries (Aharonson-Daniel et al, 2006;Weil, Petrov, Liebergall, Mintz, & Mosheiff, 2007).…”

“…Terrorism is a major cause of deaths in some of the EMR countries, such as Iraq, where a dramatic increase in violence-related deaths was observed in the post-invasion period as compared with the pre-invasion period (Burnham, Doocy, Dzeng, Lafta, & Roberts, 2007). Up to now, few studies have assessed and compared the burden of terrorism with other modes of injuries (Wilson & Thomson, 2005a, 2005b.…”

“…The burden of terrorism in which violence is directed at civilians is often not measured separately because of difficulties in defining this sub-category in the disease burden assessment (Arnold et al, 2003;Wilson & Thomson, 2005a). Terrorism is a major cause of deaths in some of the EMR countries, such as Iraq, where a dramatic increase in violence-related deaths was observed in the post-invasion period as compared with the pre-invasion period (Burnham, Doocy, Dzeng, Lafta, & Roberts, 2007).…”

On the human consequences of terrorism

“…Terrorism thus is shown to be a low probability event with small consequences, as measured by its global burden. In that way, preexisting work that is circumspect about the risk and effectiveness of terrorism (e.g., Abrahms 2011;Wilson and Thompson 2005) is corroborated using entirely different data and methods for assessing the consequences of terrorism.…”