Abstract

BAMBAREN ALATRISTA, Celso Vladimir  and  ALATRISTA GUTIERREZ, María Del Socorro. Estimation of economic impact on the public health service of emergencies that could occur in the next five years. Rev Med Hered [online]. 2007, vol.18, n.2, pp.85-91. ISSN 1018-130X.

Objective: To estimate economic damage and loss in the public health service produced by emergencies that could occur in the next five years. Material and methods: The decisions and risk model were based on ECLA`s methodology of socioeconomic and environmental impact. Uncertain variables such as damages to health centres, cost of construction, cost of visits and health interventions, population at risk and number of casualties were included. Results: The economic impact of emergencies in the public health service was calculated between 10 and 26 million dollars. The sensivity analysis showed that the most important variables were number of destroyed and affected buildings. Conclusions: There is a probability between 20% and 80% that the economic impact of emergencies on the public health service could reach 23 and 32 million dollars in the next five years. Protection of health service is a matter of high effectiveness in the reduction of economic damages and loss after an emergency. (Rev Med Hered 2007;18:85-91).

Keywords : Disaster; economic damage; economic loss; health service.

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