title: On the Cost of Big Events: Are Weather-Related Disasters as Bad as Economic Recessions for Health Disparities Related to Drug Use?
abstract: This commentary reviews two manuscripts about big event empirical data exploring concepts and pathways of drug use and health-related events. Using basic concepts and tools, it proposes a focused framework in order to help comprehension of the multifactorial and multilevel components between macrosocial determinants of health, contextual pathways of drug use and drug-use harm and individual levels in the episode of a big event occurrence. The text also discusses implications of preexisting conditions that may be contributing factors for socially and economically segregated subsets of the population, groups possibly "at risk of risks," meaning unequally exposed to risks that generate exposure to other risks, amplifying preexistent inequities.
authors.affiliation: 1Belo Horizonte Observatory for Urban Health (OSUBH), Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG) , Belo Horizonte , Brazil.
authors.forename: Waleska Teixeira
authors.initials: WT
authors.lastname: Caiaffa
authors.forename: Roseli Gomes
authors.initials: RG
authors.lastname: Andrade
mesh_terms: D055867:Cyclonic Storms; D004190:Disasters; D057172:Economic Recession; D015658:HIV Infections / Q000150:complications; D054624:Health Status Disparities; D006801:Humans; D019966:Substance-Related Disorders / Q000150:complications
keywords: HIV infection; austerity; big events; climate change; disasters; drug-use related harm; economic recession