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Changes in profiles of airborne fungi in flooded homes in southern Taiwan after Typhoon Morakot

SCIENCE OF THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT (2011)

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SCIENCE OF THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT

卷 409, 期 9, 页码 1677-1682

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DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2011.01.042

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Taiwan; Typhoon Morakot; Flooded homes; Airborne fungi; I/O ratio; Aspergillus

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Environmental Sciences

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摘要

In August 2009, the historic Typhoon Morakot brought extreme rainfall and resulted in flooding which spread throughout southern Taiwan. This study compared the difference between fungal concentrations before and after the disaster in selected homes of the Tainan metropolitan area, which were hit hardest by the catastrophe. A group of 83 households available from a prior cohort established with random sampling out of a regional population in southern Taiwan was contacted successfully by telephone. Twenty-five of these reported to have suffered from floods of various degrees at this time. Around 2 weeks after the event, at which time most of the remedial process had been completed by self-efforts and public health endeavours, 14 of these 25(56%) agreed to participate in measurements of the airborne microbial concentrations. The averages (standard deviation) of the total culturable fungal concentrations in children's bedrooms and flooded rooms were 18,181 (25,854) colony-forming units per cubic metre (CFU/m(3)) and 13,440 (11,033) CFU/m(3), respectively. The airborne fungal spore levels in the 2 above-mentioned indoor sites were 221,536 (169,640) spores/m(3) and 201,582 (137,091) spores/m(3), respectively. The average indoor/outdoor ratios in the children's bedrooms were 4.2 for culturable fungi and 1.4 for fungal spores. These values were higher than the respective values measured in the same homes during the previous year: 1.1 and 0.6. In terms of the specific fungal profile, the percentages of Aspergillus spp. increased significantly in both the indoor and outdoor environments after the event. To this date, this study is among the limited research that has been conducted to quantitatively demonstrate that fungal manifestation is likely to persist in flooded homes even after seemingly robust remedial measures have been put into place. Studies to examine the potential health implications and effectiveness of better remedial technology remain much needed. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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Health care cost of floods: Evidence from Typhoon Morakot in Taiwan

Ya-Ming Liu, Yen-Lien Kuo, Hone-Jay Chu, Wun-Ci Kuo, Hsin-Chieh Tseng

Summary: Using the difference-in-difference (DID) method, this study estimates the effect of flooding on health care cost burden using Typhoon Morakot as an example. The results show that the increase in outpatient health care costs caused by the flood is approximately NTD 8.95 billion (USD 280 million), equivalent to 69% of the annual special budget for flooding prevention in Taiwan. Additionally, the increase in outpatient expenditure for mental illnesses is significantly higher than for physiological diseases. These findings suggest that preventing natural disasters like floods can offset health care costs, especially for mental illnesses.

JOURNAL OF ASIAN ECONOMICS (2023)