Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • NEWS FEATURE

Death, statistics and a disaster zone: the struggle to count the dead after Hurricane Maria

Intense controversies surround studies of how many people perish in conflicts and disasters, but researchers are developing new ways to measure mortality rates.
  1. Carrie Arnold

    1. Carrie Arnold is a science journalist in Richmond, Virginia.

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed  Google Scholar

A demonstrator holds a Puerto Rican flag

A protest in Puerto Rico in June 2018 highlights one estimated death toll for Hurricane Maria. Credit: Xavier Garcia/Bloomberg/Getty

In the pale predawn hours of Old San Juan last February, Neysha Burgos-Nieves and Hector Rosado loaded a battered black car with everything they might need for a few days — from bottled water and protein bars to flashlights and a change of clothes. Their first stop was more than two hours away, high in Puerto Rico’s isolated central mountains. Although it had been more than four months since Hurricane Maria had slammed into the island in September 2017, much of the US territory remained without electricity, water or mobile-phone service. If Burgos-Nieves and Rosado ran into trouble once they left the relative safety of San Juan, the two research assistants would be on their own.

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Nature 566, 22-25 (2019)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-00442-0

References

  1. Guha-Sapir, D., Revel, J.-P. & Lechat, M. F. CISFAM: Consolidated Information System for Famine Management in Africa (Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters & World Health Organization, 1987).

    Google Scholar 

  2. Guha-Sapir, D., Degomme, O. & Phelan, M. Darfur: Counting the Deaths (Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters, 2005).

    Google Scholar 

  3. Burnham, G., Lafta, R., Doocy, S. & Roberts, L. Lancet 368, 1421–1428 (2006).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  4. Iraq Family Health Survey Study Group N. Engl. J. Med. 358, 484–493 (2008).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Kishore, N. et al. N. Engl. J. Med. 379, 162–170 (2018).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  6. Santos-Burgoa, C. et al. Lancet Planet. Health 2, e478–e488 (2018).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Download references

Subjects

Latest on:

Nature Careers

Jobs

  • Technician - Senior Technician in Cell and Molecular Biology

    APPLICATION CLOSING DATE: 24.05.2024 Human Technopole (HT) is a distinguished life science research institute founded and supported by the Italian ...

    Milan (IT)

    Human Technopole

  • Postdoctoral Fellow

    The Dubal Laboratory of Neuroscience and Aging at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) seeks postdoctoral fellows to investigate the ...

    San Francisco, California

    University of California, San Francsico

  • Postdoctoral Associate

    Houston, Texas (US)

    Baylor College of Medicine (BCM)

  • Postdoctoral Research Fellow

    Description Applications are invited for a postdoctoral fellow position at the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute, Sinai Health, to participate...

    Toronto (City), Ontario (CA)

    Sinai Health

  • Postdoctoral Research Associate - Surgery

    Memphis, Tennessee

    St. Jude Children's Research Hospital (St. Jude)

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing

Search

Advanced search

Quick links