The capabilities necessary to save lives, protect property and the environment, and meet basic human needs after an incident has occurred.
The capabilities necessary to assist communities affected by an incident to recover effectively."
While we focus here on preparedness and response, the issue of recovery is raised in addressing question 3 below. We ask five questions and use rough indices with available data to answer them.
1. What distinguishes disaster from non-disaster? 2. What is the relative health burden of disaster and non-disaster events in the U.S. 3 . Is mortality a reasonable index for the relative burden of disaster and non-disaster events? 4. What is the relative allocation of resources for disaster and non-disaster events in the U.S. What are the ratios of resources/disaster and /non-disaster events in the U.S., and how do these two ratios compare, i.e., how does the allocation of resources for disaster outcomes compare with that for non-disaster outcomes-a ratio of ratios?
5. It is difficult to ascertain the cost of averting a death associated with disaster, but I ask what is the cost of averting deaths from several non-disaster causes of deaths? All rights reserved. No reuse allowed without permission.
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Mortality is used as an estimate of the relative burden of disaster and non-disaster events, following categories from the standard ICD coding. To validate the use of mortality as an overall outcome metric, reports on the relative tangible and intangible costs of disaster and non-disaster events are compared with mortality rates from the same events. The relative allocation of spending on disaster and non-disaster events in the budget of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is assessed as an indication of relative health cost allocation in the U.S. The ratios of CDC budget allocations to U.S. mortality for disaster and non-disaster events are compared. The cost of reducing mortality from specific causes of death are estimated from available studies.
1. Distinguishing disaster from non-disaster Public health disasters (or emergencies) are events that are unexpected (at least by their victims), rapid in onset, large in consequences (at least locally), and, thus, beyond the coping capacity of usual resources. [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] Though the terminology is not used consistently, some agencies distinguish "emergencies," which demand resources beyond routine practice, but which can be addressed with available resources, from "disasters," which result in greater damage and demand more resources than locally available. [5] For purposes of this analysis, we will group both in the more severe category, i.e., disasters. Some events are disasters because they threaten contagion and have major impact. What also clearly count as disasters are: major natural events-large area All rights reserved. No reuse allowed without permission.
(which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. To estimate the relative public health burden of events that are disasters and not disasters, we use mortality data because they are available, reliable, and a major measure of health. Mortality is an indicator of additional suffering (in the form of morbidity) and can serve as rough estimator of broader health phenomena. The assumption here is not that the focus of preparedness and prevention is mortality, or that other outcomes, e.g., morbidity or the destruction of property are comparatively less important, but only that mortality is a reasonable proxy for all outcomes combined. We test this assumption below.
Among all 2.74 million deaths in the U.S. in 2016-the latest data available, less than 0.01% were attributed to terrorism, and less than that each for natural disasters and conflict; say that disaster-associated mortality accounts for 0.04% of total US mortality (https://ourworldindata.org/is-it-fair-to-compare-terrorism-and-disaster-with-other-causes-of-death). In most years since 1900 there were fewer than 500 deaths from natural disasters in the U.S.(ref) Perhaps addi-All rights reserved. No reuse allowed without permission.
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The copyright holder for this preprint this version posted October 28, 2020. ; https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.10.22.20216275 doi: medRxiv preprint tional disastrous deaths are attributed to other causes, but even doubling or tripling the known proportion, the mortality attributable to disaster in the U.S. in 2016 is relatively small. To look at the ratio of disaster to non disaster events in another way, the likelihood of dying of a non disaster event in the U.S. is approximately 2,500 times (0.9996/0.0004) that of dying of a disaster event. Cardiovascular diseases and cancers combined-the two leading causes-account for 57% of U.S. deaths in that year (https://ourworldindata.org/is-it-fair-to-compare-terrorism-anddisaster-with-other-causes-of-death). The top ten causes combined account for 88.7% of all deaths.
The more than 480,000 deaths annually caused by tobacco, mostly consumed voluntarily, are not regarded as disaster-1,315 deaths each day and 17.6% of US mortality. But imagine that no smoking-related deaths occurred for 51 weeks in the year, then 9,205 occurred (at the rate of 1,315 deaths daily) during a single week. In this case, about 2% of smoking-related deaths might provoke a rapid investigation and disaster response, while 100% of smoking-related deaths spread throughout the year does not. In 2016, more that 20,000 Americans were killed in motor vehicle crashes, more than half of them were not wearing seat-belts. There were 38,600 firearms deaths in the U.S. [7] These are not classified as disasters.
We use mortality as a metric to compare the relative costs of disaster and non-disaster preparedness and prevention. While mortality statistics in the U.S. are comprehensive and generally accurate sources of health events, they may not equally represent the burdens of disaster and non-All rights reserved. No reuse allowed without permission.
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The copyright holder for this preprint this version posted October 28, 2020. ; https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.10.22.20216275 doi: medRxiv preprint disaster events. Clearly, the costs associated with smoking and with natural disasters differ fundamentally-the costs of smoking are those associated with the living smoker and the additional costs of natural disaster accrue predominantly after disaster-related deaths. The issue of comparison, however, is whether the burdens of both are close enough in magnitude, whenever they occur, for the deaths to constitute a reasonable metric for comparison of costs of prevention and preparedness for the two event types.
To explore this issue and assess the validity of mortality as an index of burden, we compare forms of burden for smoking-related deaths [8] and the consequences of natural disasters [9] in a high income nation for which such data are available-Australia, where intangible well as tangible outcomes associated with smoking and with natural disasters have been assesses Direct tangible costs are "those incurred as a result of the hazard event and have a market value such as damage to properties, infrastructure, vehicles and crops….Indirect tangible costs … arise from the consequences of the damage and destruction such as business disruption, clean-up emergency relief and recovery costs, and network disruptions…. Intangible costs arise from loss of life and from pain and suffering." [9] Intangible costs may include family violence, mental health, alcohol and drug misuse, unemployment, educational outcomes, and injury and loss of life. These costs are difficult to assess, but efforts are made. Mental health, for example, may be assigned costs by assessing treatment costs and effects on work loss. We can also measure changes in mental health or other morbidity before, during, and after disaster events. Clearly, these approaches do not include the suffering involved.
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The copyright holder for this preprint this version posted October 28, 2020. ; https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.10.22.20216275 doi: medRxiv preprint One report [9] estimates the tangible and intangible costs of two major natural disasters in Aus- the ratio comparing two other ratios-tangible and intangible costs/death for disaster and nondisaster events. The ratio of disaster to non-disaster mortality costs/death are 0.14 tangible costs, 0.023 for intangible costs, and 0.060 for tangible and intangible mortality costs combined. Assuming that this comparison is representative of the difference between disaster and non-disaster events, the higher relative costs associated with (non-disaster) smoking-related mortality suggests that our estimates of the relative costs of disaster and non-disaster preparedness and pre vention are conservative-by approximately 16 fold.
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The 2019 budget for the CDC was $10.921 billion. "Public health preparedness and response" were allocated $1.402 billion (12.8%); so, approximately $9,519 billion remained for non-disaster spending (https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/fy-2019-budget-in-brief.pdf). This means that per death that occurred in 2016, $1,272,700 was spent for preparedness per disaster death and $3,500 was spent for preparedness per nondisaster death. Almost 370 times the preparedness funding was allocated for each disaster death (i. (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. The number of terrorist events deterred by our preparedness, including our surveillance apparatus, is impossible to estimate. Similarly, we may also expect that the number of non-disaster incidents and deaths-tobacco-related deaths and motor vehicle injuries would be larger than it is were it not for effective prevention programs and policies supported by expenditures on these matters. All rights reserved. No reuse allowed without permission.
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The copyright holder for this preprint this version posted October 28, 2020. ; https://doi.org/10.1101/2020. 10.22.20216275 doi: medRxiv preprint It is also quite plausible that it costs more to prevent a disaster-associated death than to prevent non-disaster related death. Disasters are often unpredictable or at least unpredicted, and those that are intentional are often designed to be both unpredicted and impactful. Because much of the activity and cost of disaster prevention is hidden from public scrutiny, it is not possible to estimate the cost of the extensive prevention activity per event prevented. Estimation is feasible for non-disaster events. We know the cost of NOT getting a smoker to quit, not wearing a seatbelt; these costs are high. For example, the societal costs of cigarette smoking in the U.S. is approximately $300 billion annually, which includes direct medical costs as well as lost productivity to smokers themselves and to those exposed to second-hand smoke; per adult smoker, that is more than $7,000 annually. (CDC: https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/economics/ econ_facts/index.htm#anchor_1548357936093)
What is the cost of converting a smoker into a non-smoker? Asaria et al. [12] have estimated the cost in several low-and middle-income nations (thus not including the U.S.) of several antismoking interventions with demonstrated effectiveness in reducing rates of smoking-related mortality. The average cost of three anti-smoking programs combined (i.e., increased tobacco taxes, smoke-free workplaces, and requirements for labelling of tobacco products, public awareness campaigns, and a ban on tobacco advertising, promotion, and sponsorship) is an average of $0.26 per capita population per year for 10 years, i.e., $2.60 total, for a 15% reduction in the prevalence of smoking. Let us say that the costs of such programs per capita in the U.S. are double the highest annual cost in the Asaria study , i.e., $0.72 in Poland. The prevalence of smoking among adults in the U.S. is currently approximately 15.1%. [13] Thus, the cost of these programs per All rights reserved. No reuse allowed without permission.
(which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. year is an exceptional bargain.
This analysis rests on many assumptions, some of which may be questioned. One is that what are reported as disaster-related deaths, and thus, by subtraction, counted as non-disaster deaths, are actually representative of what are counted as disasters and non-disasters. We have also assumed that the CDC budget is representative of the relative expenditures for disaster and nondisaster preparedness/prevention in the U.S. What counts as disaster preparedness is a matter that may involve the military, whose budget is orders of magnitude larger than that of public health and perhaps not fully transparent; addition of this factor would only increase the issue of imbalance raised here. Another assumption, addressed above is whether mortality is a good metric by which to measure the burdens of disaster and non-disaster events. Data to address the relative cost for disaster and non-disaster events are hard to come by; sources are chosen because they are available, plausible, and valid, not to present a particular outcome.
Findings from psychological studies of decision-making may partially explain the extensive differential allocation of resources. Humans routinely overestimate the magnitude and frequency of rare events and underestimate the magnitude and frequency of common events, [14] a phe-All rights reserved. No reuse allowed without permission.
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The copyright holder for this preprint this version posted October 28, 2020. ; https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.10.22.20216275 doi: medRxiv preprint nomenon also referred to as "probability neglect" [15] and "overreaction to fearsome events." [15] Rare and threatening events receive disproportionate attention in the media which distorts their relative importance. We may allocate resources accordingly. Experimental efforts to correct misjudgments of relative magnitude are ineffective. These fears may be costly.
The findings from this analysis are rough, but even if inaccurate by an order of magnitude, they indicate a questionable alignment. We are approximately 2,500 times more likely to die of a non-disaster event than of a disaster. Yet we spend roughly 370 times as much to prevent disaster-related events as we do to prevent non-disaster-related events. What the relative allocation of resources to disaster versus non-disaster events should look like is not clear. I suspect that the current massive gap is problematic and may not correspond with shared values. We may be driven by irrational fears to spend inordinate attention to the (rare) extraordinary to the relative neglect of the (common) ordinary. I do not know if there is a rational way to decide appropriate allocation, but I believe it is worthwhile to attempt to make the comparison, to be aware of the gap, and to consider this question. We can ask if the ratio we estimate here is one we find reasonable and acceptable. Data and analysis should play prominent roles in the allocation of societal resources.
Posid, J.M., et al., Public health emergencies and responses: What are they, how long do they last, and how many staff does your agency need? Biosecurity and Bioterrorism: Biodefense Strategy, Practice, and Science, 2013. 11(4): p. 271-279. All rights reserved. No reuse allowed without permission.
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