BackgroundDue to climate change, extreme weather events have an incremental impact on human health. Injuries and mental health disorders are a particular burden of disease, which is broadly investigated in high income countries. Most distressed populations are, however, those in developing countries. Therefore, this study investigates mental and physical health impacts arising from extreme weather events in these populations.MethodPost-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), injury [primary outcomes], anxiety and depressive disorders [secondary outcomes], caused by weather extremes were systematically analyzed in people of developing countries. A systematic review of observational studies was conducted searching six databases, complemented by hand search, and utilizing two search engines. Review processing was done independently by two reviewers. Prevalence rates were analyzed in a pre/post design; an additional semi-structured search was conducted, to provide reference data for studies not incorporating reference values.ResultsAll 17 identified studies (70,842 individuals) indicate a disease increase, compared to the reference data. Increase ranges from 0.7–52.6 % for PTSD, and from 0.3–37.3 % for injury. No studies on droughts and heatwaves were identified. All studies were conducted in South America and Asia.ConclusionThere is an increased burden of psychological diseases and injury. This finding needs to be incorporated into activities of prevention, preparedness and general health care of those developing countries increasingly experiencing extreme weather events. There is also a gap in research in Africa (in quantity and quality) of studies in this field and a predominant heterogeneity of health assessment tools.PROSPERO registration no.: CRD42014009109
Extreme weather events in developing countries and related injuries and mental health disorders - a systematic review
E. Rataj,K. Kunzweiler,S. Garthus-Niegel
Published 2016 in BMC Public Health
ABSTRACT
PUBLICATION RECORD
- Publication year
2016
- Venue
BMC Public Health
- Publication date
2016-09-29
- Fields of study
Medicine, Environmental Science
- Identifiers
- External record
- Source metadata
Semantic Scholar, PubMed
CITATION MAP
EXTRACTION MAP
CLAIMS
CONCEPTS
- africa
A continent used to describe geographic coverage and evidence gaps in the review literature.
- anxiety disorders
Anxiety-related mental health conditions assessed as secondary outcomes in the review.
Aliases: anxiety
- depressive disorders
Depressive mental health conditions assessed as secondary outcomes in the review.
Aliases: depression
- developing countries
Lower-resource national settings targeted by the review population and evidence synthesis.
- droughts and heatwaves
Weather-extreme categories involving prolonged dryness or unusually high temperatures.
Aliases: droughts, heatwaves
- extreme weather events
Severe weather episodes considered as the exposure of interest in the review, including weather-related extremes.
Aliases: weather extremes, extreme weather
- injury
Physical harm or bodily injury assessed as a primary outcome in the review.
- post-traumatic stress disorder
A trauma-related mental health disorder assessed as a primary outcome in the review.
Aliases: PTSD
REFERENCES
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