Universal famine thresholds may mask unfolding starvation

Universal famine thresholds may mask unfolding starvation

Recent global crises have exposed the limits of a universal mortality threshold for declaring famine-an approach that can obscure how famine actually unfolds across different populations.

Outdated mortality benchmarks risk missing early signs of famine and delay recognizing mass starvation

Recent global crises have exposed the limits of a universal mortality threshold for declaring famine—an approach that can obscure how famine actually unfolds across different populations. In a paper published in The Lancet, researchers at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and colleagues call for a fundamental re-examination of how famine thresholds are defined.

Rethinking Famine Detection in a Changing World

When the biological machinery of a human population begins to fail under the weight of systemic starvation, the signals are often written in the data long before the bodies are counted in the morgues. Yet, according to a provocative and urgent new critique published in the venerable medical journal The Lancet, the global community’s primary […]