The impact of disasters due to natural hazards on human infectious disease risk: a narrative review and conceptual framework

CONTEXT: Disasters caused by natural hazards increase infectious diseases through water-borne, vector-borne and human-to-human transmission. In addition, human injury, stress and trauma following disasters increase susceptibility to infection. These factors provide the ideal conditions for disease outbreaks. OBJECTIVE: To develop a conceptual framework and conduct a narrative review on the key determinants of infectious disease risk during disasters and consider mitigation measures to prevent such outbreaks. METHODS: An adapted conceptual framework was developed, followed by systematic searches of PubMed and Scopus. Peer-reviewed studies examining disasters and infectious disease in human hosts from 2000 to 2025 were included. A narrative synthesis was conducted. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: This review demonstrates how infectious disease risks from disasters can be analysed according to three major determinants, namely: natural hazards (type, nature and severity), exposures, and host vulnerability. Overlaying these determinants is the adaptive capacity of the community at a systems level including infrastructure, health systems, disaster preparedness and emergency response. Adaptive capacity can have a major influence on the severity of infectious disease outcomes. With climate change disruptions predicted to increase the frequency and severity of disasters due to natural hazards, this adds even more importance to identifying infectious disease risks and mitigating actions for the most vulnerable populations.