A new study shows flooding’s impact on human health is much greater than is typically recognized, going beyond health issues such as the risk of accidental injury, and exposure to waterborne and infectious diseases.

The cost of severe flooding in the United States is often tallied in economic terms, but it’s effect on human health is less well understood.

The researchers found that flooding is associated with an increased risk of mortality due to cardiovascular disease, respiratory disease, and mental disorders.

“Previously, when we’ve talked about costs of severe flooding we have focused on billion-dollar disaster events measured by property damage and insurance claims,” says Kai Chen, assistant professor of epidemiology (environmental health) at Yale University and senior author of the study published in the journal Nature Water. “But a majority of non-communicable diseases can also be impacted by flooding.”

The researchers reviewed data from 446,807 deaths from all causes that occurred from 2015 to 2019 across 98 counties in North Carolina, a state that has experienced a number of severe weather disasters over the past 30 years, including various types of flooding.

They compared the risk of mortality from flash floods—flooding that begins within three to six hours during heavy rainfall that is often caused by thunderstorms—and longer-duration floods that take place over one day or multiple days. They were surprised that the two types of flooding—acute and fast flash floods, and days-long floods—showed similar outcomes.

“There are some differences,” Chen says. “The non-flash floods have higher total attributable deaths than flash floods, but overall, they are comparable in terms of risks.”

The researchers also reviewed the risk of accidental and non-accidental death among both young and older people, again, with surprising results.

“Another interesting finding was that we saw a difference between not only the types of floods, but the people who died because of exposure to flooding,” Chen says. “We see that older adults have an increased risk for accidental death, but young people actually have a higher risk for non-accidental death due to flooding.”

Accidental deaths include those caused by falling and drowning. Non-accidental deaths include deaths from cardiovascular disease, respiratory diseases, and mental disorders. The researchers controlled for factors at the county level such as poverty and access to health care. They also controlled for temperature and precipitation rates in their model.

Read the full article about the health impacts of flooding by Jane Dee at Futurity.