Invited perspectives: Redefining disaster risk – the convergence of natural hazards and health crises

Abstract

Abstract. Recently, the disaster risk field has made substantial steps forward to develop increasingly comprehensive risk assessments, accounting for the incidence of multiple hazards, trickle-down effects of cascading disasters and/or impacts, and spatiotemporal dynamics. While the COVID-19 outbreak increased general awareness of the challenges that arise when disasters from natural hazards and diseases collide, we still lack a comprehensive understanding of the role of disease outbreaks in disaster risk assessments and management, and that of health impacts of disasters. In specific, the occurrence probabilities and the impacts of disease outbreaks following natural hazards are not well-understood and are commonly excluded from multi-hazard risk assessments and management. Therefore, in this perspective paper, we develop a research agenda that focusses on (1) learning lessons from interdisciplinary communities such as compound risks and the socio-hydrology community for modelling the occurrence probabilities and temporal element (lag times) of disasters and health/disease-outbreaks, (2) the inclusion of health-related risk metrics within conventional risk assessment frameworks, (3) improving data availability and modelling approaches to quantify the role of stressors and interventions on health impacts of disasters. Collectively, this agenda is intended to advance our understanding of disaster risk considering potential health crises. The developed research agenda is not only crucial for scientists aiming to improve risk modelling capabilities, but also for decision makers and practitioners to anticipate and respond to the increasing complexity of disaster risk.