title: Disaster-related fatalities among US citizens traveling abroad.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To describe the locations and risk of death associated with natural disaster fatalities for US citizens traveling abroad.
  
  
  METHODS
  A retrospective database review of US citizen disaster deaths occurring worldwide.
  
  
  METHODS
  None.
  
  
  METHODS
  Information on fatalities due to disasters was abstracted from the US Department of State Web site reporting deaths of US citizens abroad by non-natural causes from October 2002 through June 2012. The main outcome measures were the frequency of disaster deaths and countries where disasters occurred. Descriptive statistics and rates were used to evaluate the study data.
  
  
  RESULTS
  There were 7,963 total non-natural deaths of US citizens traveling abroad during the study period. Of these, 163 (2.0 percent) were disaster-related deaths, involving 19 disaster events in 15 countries. Only two disaster-related events resulted in more than two deaths of US travelers-the 2010 earthquake in Haiti causing 121 fatalities (74.2 percent of disaster deaths), and the 2004 tsunami in Thailand causing 22 fatalities (13.5 percent of disaster deaths). The approximate annual mean death rate for US citizen travelers as a result of disaster events is 0.27 deaths/1 million travelers, compared with 1.4 deaths/1 million residents due to disaster annually within the United States.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The risk of disaster-related fatality is low for US citizens traveling abroad. Although disaster-related death among travelers is unpredictable, during a period of almost 10 years, there was only one reported death due to disaster in the five countries most frequently visited by US travelers. Further investigation may identify population-, seasonal-, country-, or location-specific risks from which prevention strategies can be developed.
authors.affiliation: Adjunct Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine, Division of International Emergency Medicine, Department of Emergency Medicine, Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, Providence, Rhode Islands.
authors.forename: Robert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Partridge
authors.affiliation: Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine, Division of International Emergency Medicine, Department of Emergency Medicine, Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, Providence, Rhode Islands.
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Bouslough
authors.affiliation: Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine (Clinical), Division of International Emergency Medicine, Department of Emergency Medicine, Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, Providence, Rhode Islands.
authors.forename: Lawrence
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Proano
mesh_terms: D002423:Cause of Death; D004190:Disasters; D006801:Humans; D038622:Internationality; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012307:Risk Factors; D014195:Travel; D014481:United States