Citation

Arnold C. Nature 2019; 566(7742): 22-25.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1038/d41586-019-00442-0

PMID

30723359

Abstract

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.

Their goal was simple, if ambitious: calculate the excess mortality from Hurricane Maria. In other words, determine how many people perished in the months following the storm and subtract the number of people who, on average, probably would have died anyway. Burgos-Nieves, Rosado and their adviser Domingo Marqués, a clinical psychologist at Carlos Albizu University in San Juan, had no idea what that estimate might be. But anyone who had spent time in Puerto Rico knew that the excess deaths were much higher than the government’s official count of 64.

It was gruelling work. Many of the researchers in Marqués’s team had lost electricity, water and, in some cases, their homes. Nearly all admit to breaking down in tears at least once ...

Language: en

Keywords

Epidemiology; Health care