In this scoping review, the discussion revolves around how multiple disasters can directly affect populations as well as the indirect impacts. The 150 included articles included in the review were mainly qualitative in design (65%) and were further categorized into the primary topic of focus.
The results show that the direct implications include mental health, physical health, wellbeing, and resilience. The themes describing the indirect impacts identified were on the effects on healthcare facilities, risk perception and evacuation, household and community responses, government responses, and humanitarian and NGO responses. The authors did not find that the individual-level effects were consistent among the literature, however, the community-level impacts showed inequitable effects during multiple disasters.
Many articles have found there is a high rate of mental and psychological effects of multiple disasters such as psychological distress, acute stress disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, panic disorder, and risk of suicide attempts. However, these impacts were not uniform across all studies, the severity of the disasters and other factors played a role. When assessing wellbeing and resilience, the authors found that the findings were mixed across different contexts, the authors attribute this to the lack of sufficient studies identified and included in their review. The physical impacts described included the incidence of chronic illnesses such as asthma, high blood pressure, obesity, and polycythemia. They also included rates of adverse maternal outcomes, reduced childhood development, and an increase in infectious diseases within the theme of physical effects. Very few studies were included in the indirect impacts themes and more research is required to understand how multiple disaster exposures influence perceptions and responses of communities, government entities, and stakeholders.
They have also identified gaps in the literature describing the differences between the effects of recurring disasters of the same and different hazard types, the effect of timing between disaster exposures, the mental health impacts of repeat disaster exposure, and a deeper understanding of the long term effects of multiple disaster exposures.
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