The distinctiveness of human aging I: Anthropological and developmental foundations.

Socioenvironmental disasters are increasing in frequency, and have many effects on human health (; ; ; ). We use the term “socioenvironmental disasters” because the damage wrought by so-called natural disasters is thoroughly shaped by social and economic preconditions. Furthermore, although some disasters such as major earthquakes arguably are not caused by human economic and other activities, climate change, floods, extreme heat events, and wind storms have been affected by human actions to some degree (ByIrasema Alcántara-Ayala, 2022). Understanding the impacts of socioenvironmental disasters, and their mechanisms of impact, is important for planning effective and equitable responses to these ever more frequent crises. This paper provides a framework to guide such research, which an emphasis on the long-term effects of these disasters on overdose and on overdose mortality. Some of the effects of disasters on human health are self-evident and direct, as when earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes, or hurricanes destroy towns or cities and lead to considerable morbidity and mortality. For example, Hurricane Harvey caused 107 deaths in the US, mostly from drowning (). Other effects may unfold through socio-political-economic processes over periods of years or decades. Taking into account both the immediate harms and a variety of processes causing later harm, socially-caused climate change has caused both water shortages and destructive flooding, famine, economic and social conflict, mass population displacement, and wars in the Sahel that have caused hundreds of thousands of deaths and widespread morbidity in the Sahel including increases in mental health and substance use disorders (; ) An earthquake in Nicaragua in 1972 was a major catalyst of the Sandinista Revolution, the ensuing contra struggles, and various transformations in social organization, which caused conflict-related deaths and morbidity and transformations in the health systems of the country (). In broad terms, the social relations that humanity creates and processes in the rest of nature mutually affect each other, and affect human health, including drug use and overdose mortality. This is clearly evident with the social production of climate change and dangerous changes in other ecosystems due to resource extraction or changes in land use patterns (, ; Fabian Stenzel, 2025; ; ; ). Climate change has increased the frequency, range, and intensity of many kinds of disasters, including wildfires, hurricanes, floods, and zoonotic epidemics. The impacts of each specific disaster are shaped by the social relations of its affected areas, its concomitant effects on physical environments, the spatial distributions of resident populations, how affected populations, organizations, and governments respond to these and, relatedly, how they interpret and define these events and their sequelae (ByIrasema Alcántara-Ayala, 2022). For example, both Hurricanes Katrina (; Eloise Dunlap, 2012; Moise IK, 2016; ; Voorhees, 2007 ) and Sandy () led to disastrous flooding in many highly-populated areas and to changes in drug markets and the lives of people who use drugs (PWUD). Nonetheless, political responses to these events in New Orleans/Louisiana and New York City/State were very different, as were the extent to which each led to permanent out-migration of racially minoritized residents.