Disaster
by
Disasters invariably reveal the frailty of human health. Derived from the Middle French word désastre and from the Italian disastro, disaster is an emotive noun that signifies an unfortunate event that is calamitous and distressing in character. Disaster can strike at an individual or family level: a shock diagnosis of cancer, for example. But it is more often used to refer to a large-scale event that devastates a community or a country, raising profound questions not only about life and livelihood but also about who is responsible for curbing public health threats and for protecting the health of a country’s citizens. In terms of its long historical arc, the epidemiological transmission of disease is one of the most visible forms of public health disaster. The transmission of smallpox and bubonic plague among migrating communities emerged historically alongside the development of agricultural economies during the Bronze Age, a two-thousand-year period in Europe, Africa, and Asia (Armelagos et al. 2005; Norris 2016). In early modern history, mass deaths among indigenous communities in the Americas were caused by European travelers and colonists taking smallpox to the New World. Smallpox not only contributed to the displacement of native tribes, but it linked disease transmission...
This essay may be found on page 63 of the printed volume.