The Epidemiology of Natural Hazards, Disasters, and Epidemics: A Systematic Worldwide Mortality Analysis of 210 Countries for 15 Years (2001-2015)

Background: In recent years, the unprecedented death tolls as a result of natural hazards, disasters, and epidemics made everyone interested from the general public to country heads to know about the mortality rates. The coronavirus issue is the most recent example, which is all over the media, and everyone is talking about corona-induced mortality.Objective: The study aimed to estimate the disaster-induced mortality rates at the global level for two hundred and ten countries for fifteen years (2001-2015).Methods: Using a retrospective study design, datasets were extracted from two data sources, Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters’ Emergency Events Database (EM-DAT) and United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in October 2019. The cut-off time for the data download was midnight Central European Time, Oct 17, 2019. The data analysis was carried out in October-Nov 2019. Our study systematically estimated the disaster-induced mortality rates for two hundred and ten countries across the globe for fifteen years (2001-2005).Results: Findings of our study indicate that disaster-induced mortality rates differ significantly from country to country. Furthermore, within the same country, mortality rates fluctuate from one year to another. The most noticeable finding is that, different from current understanding, developing and developed countries are equally subjected to the burden of disaster-induced mortality rates.Conclusion: The study is of paramount importance to initiate a debate amongst the concerned policymakers and stakeholder to establish a mechanism to monitor the disaster-induced mortality rates regularly. So that effective interventions can be devised to decrease the number of disaster-induced mortality rates.Funding Statement: This research didn't receive any kind of funding from any organization or any individual entity.Declaration of Interests: The author declares no conflict of interest.