A non-monetary global measure of the direct impact of natural disasters

Ilan Noy

No 19262, Working Paper Series from Victoria University of Wellington, School of Economics and Finance

Abstract: The standard way in which disaster damages are measured involves examining separately the number of fatalities, of injuries, of people otherwise affected, and the financial damage that natural disasters cause. Here, we propose a novel way to aggregate measures of disaster impact, which aims to overcome many of the difficulties previously identified in the literature. This new index is similar, but conceptually different, from the World Health Organization’s calculation of Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALYs) lost from the burden of diseases and injuries (WHO, 2013). We convert all measures of impact into “lifeyears” units. After analyzing worldwide trends in lifeyears lost to disasters, we conclude with a very preliminary assessment of the likely impact, in lost lifeyears, of the current Ebola epidemic in the three most affected countries in West Africa.

Keywords: Natural disasters; Ebola; West Africa; Disaster impact (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:vuw:vuwecf:19262

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