The Correlation Between Life Expectancy and Disaster Risk

Abstract

A healthy community is a community resilient to disaster. The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction considers disaster impacts on health and encourages the implementation of disaster medicine and access to mental health services. Life expectancy (LE) is a basic statistic that indicates public health achievements and social development, including the health system, infrastructure, and accurate vital statistics. Thus, we hypothesized that LE corelates with disaster risk and strategies to achieve long LE can help achieving disaster risk reduction. We compared the disaster risk obtained from Index for Risk Management (INFORM) with the LE of both genders at birth to identify which component of INFORM risk correlates with LE. A correlation analysis revealed that overall INFORM risk negatively correlated with LE. The natural hazard category did not correlate with LE, but the human hazard category, vulnerability, and lack of coping capacity negatively correlated with LE. In the vulnerability dimension, indicators of socioeconomic vulnerability, health conditions, and children U5 negatively correlated with LE. In the lack of coping capacity dimension, indicators of communication, physical infrastructure, and access to health care negatively correlated with LE. Japan has achieved the longest LE and a low INFORM risk because of its lower vulnerability and reduced lack of coping capacity, including healthrelated indicators. In a cluster analysis of LE and INFORM categories of risk, we divided countries into four clusters and found categories that could be improved. Compared with another global disaster risk index, the Word Risk Index (WRI), the INFORM risk index seems to represent the overall disaster risk better, though they have different aspects of risk evaluation. The WRI is also negatively correlated with LE, supporting our hypothesis. In conclusion, LE is an important indicator of disaster risk and strategies to achieve long LE can be effective and important strategies in disaster risk reduction.

Are leading urban centers predisposed to global risks- An analysis of the global south from COVID-19 perspective

“…Source: authors. Variable Reference literature Key finding(s) Exposure International air connectivity ( Findlater & Bogoch, 2018 ); ( Keita, 2020 ) Air travel is leading to an increase in the frequency of reach of infectious diseases, more connected countries have higher exposure Participation in international trade ( Ibarrarán, Ruth, Ahmad, & London, 2009 ); ( Wiedmann & Lenzen, 2018 ) Increased dependency on global network can have ripple effect in different countries, developing countries appear to be disproportionately affected Air pollution ( Fattorini & Regoli, 2020 ); ( Frontera, Cianfanelli, Vlachos, Landoni, & Cremona, 2020 ) Chronic atmospheric pollution is likely to favor the spread of COVID-19 Comorbidity ( Wang, Li, Lu, & Huang, 2020 ); ( Sanyaolu et al, 2020 ) People with comorbidity are more like to be severely affected by COVID-19 Susceptibility Population Density ( Ahmadi, Sharifi, Dorosti, Ghoushchi, & Ghanbari, 2020 ); ( Bhadra, Mukherjee, & Sarkar, 2021 ); ( Liu, Liu, & Guan, 2021 ) The spread of COVID-19 is positively correlated to population density Poverty ( Mamun & Ullah, 2020 ); ( Alkire, Dirksen, Nogales, & Oldiges, 2020 ) Poor people are more susceptible to the socio-economic impacts of COVID-19 Health ( Egawa et al, 2018 ); ( Frank & Wali, 2021 ) Healthier communities are more resilient to disaster risk, life expectancy is an important indicator of disaster risk Informality ( Wilkinson, 2020 ); ( ...…”

Child Nutrition in Disaster: A Scoping Review

“…Goudet et al (2011) confirmed that barriers to appropriate IYCF practices exist in normal times and that they were escalated in the flood, thereby leading to extremely poor nutritional health in Dhaka slums in Bangladesh. Egawa et al (2018) clarified that malnutrition in children under five worsened the INFORM disaster risk index (European Commission 2021), associated with low life expectancy. According to The Sphere Project ( 2011), the time necessary to reach the minimum standard depends on resources, access, insecurity, and living standards of an area before a disaster.…”

“…Understanding their specific cultural, social, psychological, economic, and physical needs are all crucially important forces for building capacity for disaster preparedness in terms of nutrition. Disaster risk is the potential loss of life, injury, or destroyed or damaged assets which can occur to a system, society, or a community during a specific period of time, determined probabilistically as a function of hazard, exposure, vulnerability, and capacity (UNDRR 2017; Egawa et al 2018Egawa et al , 2020. Resilience can be improved when private individuals and institutions prepare by acting to build a culture of prevention and safety in a broad sense (UNDRR 2019).…”

“…A disaster is the consequence of a hazard (natural or human-induced) and its exposure when striking a commu-nity with some degree of vulnerability and some degree of coping capacity (Egawa et al 2018(Egawa et al , 2020. Therefore, disaster of all forms not only exerts strong socioeconomic effects and threaten human health and well-being, but also disaster damage strongly affects the socioeconomic background.…”

Progress of Disaster Medicine during Ten Years after the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake

“…The word count of "health" in Sendai Framework has increased to 34 words from the zero in the preceding 1 st framework, Yokohama Strategy (IDNDR, International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction 1995), and the 2 nd framework, Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA) (ISDR, International Strategy for Disaster Reduction 2005). Interestingly, the disaster risk index has a strong correlation with the life expectancy of the country, suggesting that health improvement is necessary in disaster risk reduction (Egawa et al 2018).…”