Impacts of socio-environmental disasters on public health: studies of scenarios in the Brazilian states of Santa Catarina in 2008 and Pernambuco in 2010

Abstract

Events such as floods and landslides can cause disasters that affect Brazilian public health extensively. Impacts include traumas and injuries, damage to water treatment plants and hospitals, disruption of equipment and medicine supply, epidemics and the spread of diseases, as well as lasting psychosocial damage. In this article, we study disaster scenarios in municipalities from two Brazilian states that had declared a state of public calamity as a result of flooding - Santa Catarina (2008) and Pernambuco (2010). The object was to identify and analyze the impacts of these disasters on social and environmental conditions as well as on the coverage of public health. To this purpose, the before and after disaster situation in affected municipalities was analyzed. To characterize socio-environmental vulnerability, we used data from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), the Brazilian Geological Survey (CPRM), the National Protection and Civil Defense Secretariat (SEDEC) and the Health Ministry. Although there are expressive differences between the two investigated states, especially in regards to social indicators, both of them suffered strong impacts after floods. Despite a higher human development index and low levels of poverty, Santa Catarina suffered more deaths than Pernambuco. Altogether, results demonstrate the need to include public health issues in all steps of disaster risk management.

Keywords:
Vulnerability; Weather extremes; Brazil.