Epidemiological Characteristics of Human Stampedes[1]
Summary
Objective: The potential for deadly human stampedes to occur at any mass gathering event highlights this unique form of crowd disaster as deserving of special attention from both scientific and planning perspectives. Improved understanding of human stampedes is indispensable in the mitigation of this type of mass casualty. With relatively few peer-reviewed reports on deadly human stampedes, information from news reports and the Internet is essential to increased collective understanding. Without incorporating nontraditional sources, no other way to reasonably acquire sufficient data is available. This study analyzed human stampede events from 1980 to 2007 to identify epidemiological characteristics associated with increased mortality. Methods: A LexisNexis search was followed by sequential searches of multiple Internet-based English-language news agencies. Date, country, geographical region, time of occurrence, type of event, location, mechanism, number of participants, number injured,