Premium
Famine Early Warning Systems and the Use of Socio‐Economic Data
Author(s) -
WAAL ALEX DE
Publication year - 1988
Publication title -
disasters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.744
H-Index - 70
eISSN - 1467-7717
pISSN - 0361-3666
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-7717.1988.tb01156.x
Subject(s) - famine , warning system , context (archaeology) , false positive paradox , argument (complex analysis) , interpretation (philosophy) , computer science , geography , medicine , artificial intelligence , telecommunications , archaeology , programming language
Famine early warning systems using socio‐economic data suffer from several problems. One is that they cannot, and do not attempt to, distinguish between qualitatively different kinds of famine. The second is that they cannot predict these either accurately or early enough. This is because all the socio‐economic indicators produce both false positives and false negatives, the indicators themselves are “late” and because interpretation of the data is complex and time‐consuming. The third problem is that within the context of a famine that is occurring, these indicators cannot predict excess mortality. The argument is illustrated with examples from the 1984–5 famine in Darfur, Sudan.