Zealand and to determine if prevention and response to disasters may have been improving over time. Methods We conducted a narrative review of the descriptive epidemiological parameters of disasters in New Zealand from 1900 to 2015. Disaster criteria A disaster was defined as an unexpected event that occurred within New Zealand’s current geographical jurisdiction from January 1900 and through to December 2015, which caused 10 or more confirmed fatalities. The mortality threshold for biological disasters was set at 50 or more confirmed fatalities in one year, as events such as pandemics typically occur over a longer time period and mortality rates in official reports are only in terms of deaths per year. Events were excluded from the study if there was evidence of prior planning and/or an acknowledgement for the potential loss of human life. Therefore, riots, civil unrest, massacres and events related to these were excluded (eg, the Featherston Prisoner of War Camp riot during World War Two). Search Strategy A search was conducted using Google Scholar, the Emergency Events Database (EM-DAT) (12) and NZ History’s disaster timeline (13) to create a composite dataset across the fields of natural (geophysical, meteorological, hydrological, climatological); transport, industry and infrastructure (TII); and biological disasters. Search terms included combination of the keywords "natural disaster", "transport", "industrial", "biological", "epidemic", "disasters", "New Zealand" and "epidemiology". The literature identified also served as the basis for reflection on historical aspects of New Zealand disasters from a public health perspective. These searches were expanded by reviewing key references from epidemiological literature and also included relevant inquiries including inquests, Royal Commissions and Transport Accident Investigation Commission inquiry reports. Preventability The scientific literature on preventability classifications and scales was reviewed. However there was no record of a scale which encompassed the wide range of disaster categories relevant to the current study. We therefore created a preventability scale incorporating an independent three-person review. The review team of three researchers had to reach a unanimous decision for a preventability classification to be assigned. Disasters were graded to be or “non-preventable”, “preventable”, “impact-reducible” (in the case where the event itself was not preventable but some loss of life was), using the following criteria:
Zealand and to determine if prevention and response to disasters may have been improving over time. Methods We conducted a narrative review of the descriptive epidemiological parameters of disasters in New Zealand from 1900 to 2015. Disaster criteria A disaster was defined as an unexpected event that occurred within New Zealand’s current geographical jurisdiction from January 1900 and through to December 2015, which caused 10 or more confirmed fatalities. The mortality threshold for biological disasters was set at 50 or more confirmed fatalities in one year, as events such as pandemics typically occur over a longer time period and mortality rates in official reports are only in terms of deaths per year. Events were excluded from the study if there was evidence of prior planning and/or an acknowledgement for the potential loss of human life. Therefore, riots, civil unrest, massacres and events related to these were excluded (eg, the Featherston Prisoner of War Camp riot during World War Two). Search Strategy A search was conducted using Google Scholar, the Emergency Events Database (EM-DAT) (12) and NZ History’s disaster timeline (13) to create a composite dataset across the fields of natural (geophysical, meteorological, hydrological, climatological); transport, industry and infrastructure (TII); and biological disasters. Search terms included combination of the keywords "natural disaster", "transport", "industrial", "biological", "epidemic", "disasters", "New Zealand" and "epidemiology". The literature identified also served as the basis for reflection on historical aspects of New Zealand disasters from a public health perspective. These searches were expanded by reviewing key references from epidemiological literature and also included relevant inquiries including inquests, Royal Commissions and Transport Accident Investigation Commission inquiry reports. Preventability The scientific literature on preventability classifications and scales was reviewed. However there was no record of a scale which encompassed the wide range of disaster categories relevant to the current study. We therefore created a preventability scale incorporating an independent three-person review. The review team of three researchers had to reach a unanimous decision for a preventability classification to be assigned. Disasters were graded to be “non-preventable”, “preventable”, or “impact-reducible” (in the case where the event itself was not preventable but some loss of life was), using the following criteria:
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