Multiple federal and state government agencies count the number of deaths from extreme floods, wildfires, heat waves and hurricanes. They don't always agree on which deaths should be counted.Catastrophic flash floods killed dozens of people in eastern Kentucky in July 2022. Here, homes in Jackson, Ky., are flooded with water.No one in eastern Kentucky could remember rain as intense as what fell in July 2022.
That's a problem, the federal government has long acknowledged, because who dies as a result of extreme weather, as well as how they die, is important. That public health information can help protect people from increasingly frequent disasters and can even spur policies that address the reliance on fossil fuels at the root of global warming. And inconsistency over which disaster-related deaths get counted can lead to frustration and even financial losses for the families of those who died.
Maximiliano Encarnacion uses a broom to push through floodwaters from Hurricane Maria in San Juan, Puerto Rico, in 2017. The initial official death toll from the storm was in the dozens, but subsequent epidemiological analyses suggested that thousands of additional deaths had gone uncounted.from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine about disaster death tolls, written partly in response to public frustration after Hurricane Maria.
Bob Richling carries Iris Darden through floodwater from Hurricane Florence in September 2018 in Spring Lake, North Carolina. Counting hurricane-related deaths can be complicated because sustained power outages can contribute to fatalities for weeks or even months after the storm passes.Hurricane Florence killed 45 people in North Carolina in 2018, according to the state's Department of Public Safety, but the National Hurricane Center reported 40 fatalities from the storm.
Amid concerns that many heat-related deaths might have been miscategorized on death certificates, Washington state epidemiologists used statistical methods to estimate how many extra deaths occurred compared with the same time period in previous years in the area. Those officials found that acontributes to thousands of deaths in the U.S. each year, but there is no national system for counting such deaths.
"There's no uniformity with the death certificate," says Kathryn Pinneri, the former president of the National Association of Medical Examiners. Every state gets to decide which data it gathers about weather-related fatalities."It really is going to vary among jurisdictions."
Deutschland Neuesten Nachrichten, Deutschland Schlagzeilen
Similar News:Sie können auch ähnliche Nachrichten wie diese lesen, die wir aus anderen Nachrichtenquellen gesammelt haben.
Herkunft: KSLcom - 🏆 549. / 51 Weiterlesen »