In late May this year, a collaborative team from Harvard FXB Center for Health and Human Rights, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, the University of Colorado School of Medicine, and Carlos Albizu University in Puerto Rico published “Mortality in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria” in the New England Journal of Medicine, their study which suggested that the then official Puerto Rican death registry numbers of 64 excess deaths had seriously underestimated the death toll attributable to Hurricane Maria. The paper received wide comment and shone a spotlight on the mortality in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria. Since then Puerto Rico has updated the official death toll and increased the number of dead significantly.
Statement from the Authors
Beyond Maria: Leading with Science, a Panel on September 21
- Caroline O. Buckee, Associate Professor, Department of Epidemiology, Harvard Chan;
- Satchit Balsari, Faculty, Harvard Medical School & Harvard FXB;
- Rafael Irizarry, Professor of Biostatistics, Harvard Chan & Dana Farber Cancer Insitute; and
- Domingo Marqués, Associate Professor, Carlos Albizu University.
Additional Information
Our article about the original study, which includes links to some of the press at that time: “Study Estimates Prolonged Increase in Puerto Rican Death Rate After Hurricane Maria”
Links to FAQS for that study in English and en Espanol and link to database for anonymized data and analysis
On a different aspect of health in Puerto Rico see the September 20 event at 1PM: The Environmental Legacy of War: Human & Environmental Health Consequences on Vieques, Puerto Rico