Prevalence of cardiovascular diseases following manmade disasters; a systematic review

Disasters increase the incidence of infectious and contagious diseases, non-communicable diseases, and trauma. This systematic review aims to investigate the impact of man-made disasters on cardiovascular diseases (CVDs).

This is a systematic review conducted following the PRISMA protocol. The population, intervention, control, outcome (PICO) framework utilized for this research is as follows: P: people with CVDs; I: various manmade disasters; C: no intervention is being compared; O: prevalence, treatment, and management of the disease. In the present study, English-language articles published until November 9, 2022 that investigated CVDs in human-made disasters were included. We conducted an extensive search in Medline, Web of Science, Embase, and SCOPUS.

The primary search of the databases resulted in 1878 articles, from which 1219 non-duplicate records. Finally, 18 articles were included; 13 studies were in the area of nuclear and atomic accidents, four studies were related to the sulfur mustard gas, and one was related tomethyl chloride.

CVDs increased in prevalence after man-made disasters, particularly among high-risk individuals. The likelihood of developing CVDs is higher with increasing dose, intensity, and duration of exposure.