RISK-FACTORS FOR CASUALTY IN EARTHQUAKES - THE APPLICATION OF EPIDEMIOLOGIC PRINCIPLES TO STRUCTURAL-ENGINEERING

Past investigations of the public health consequences of natural disas ters, such as earthquakes, have generally suffered from a lack of comp rehensive data due, in part, to the difficulty faced in mounting a sig nificant data collection effort in the aftermath of such an event. Thi s lack of meaningful data severely hampers the ability of casualty res earchers to develop reliable and robust estimates of death and injury in future events; these numbers are critical in planning for mitigatio n and response activities. The basic data required as input to these m odels are risk factors for injury which can only effectively be estima ted through a careful epidemiologic study of those injured (and not in jured) in past events. This paper outlines the field of earthquake inj ury epidemiology and discusses the application of the collected data. An example of a recent case-control study (in progress) is given. Impl ications for the broader application of these techniques to structural engineering are suggested.