Risks from Worldwide Terrorism: Mortality and Morbidity Patterns and Trends

Bogen, K T ; Jones, E D

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

关键词: Death;    Israel;    99 General And Miscellaneous//Mathematics, Computing, And Information Science;    National Security;    59 Basic Biological Sciences;   

DOI  :  10.2172/15014649
RP-ID  :  UCRL-TR-209429
RP-ID  :  W-7405-ENG-48
RP-ID  :  15014649

美国|英语

来源: UNT Digital Library

【 摘 要 】

Worldwide data on terrorist incidents between 1968 and 2004 gathered by the RAND corporation and the Oklahoma City National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism (MIPT) were assessed for patterns and trends in morbidity/mortality. The data involve a total of 19,828 events, 7,401 ''adverse'' events (each causing {ge}1 victim), 91,346 cases of casualty (either injury or death) and 25,408 deaths. Analyses revealed a number of interesting patterns and apparently significant trends. Most terror-related adverse events, casualties and deaths involved bombs and guns. Weapon-specific patterns and terror-related risk levels in Israel (ISR) have differed markedly from those of all other regions combined (AOR). ISR had a fatal fraction of casualties about half that of AOR, but has experienced relatively constant lifetime terror-related casualty risks on the order of 0.5%--a level 2 to 3 orders of magnitude more than those experienced in AOR, which have increased {approx}100-fold over the same period. Individual event fatality has increased steadily, the median increasing from 14 to 50%. Lorenz curves obtained indicate substantial dispersion among victim/event rates: about half of all victims were caused by the top 2% (10%) of harm-ranked events in OAR (ISR). Extreme values of victim/event rates were found to be well modeled by classic or generalized Pareto distributions, indicating that these rates have been as predictable as similarly extreme phenomena such as rainfall, sea levels, earthquakes, etc. This observation suggests that these extreme-value patterns may be used to improve strategies to prevent and manage risks associated with terror-related consequences.