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A Comparative Study of Terrorist Attacks Targeting Healthcare in North America vs Europe

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 October 2024

Raphael Wertz ,
Benoit Stryckman ,
János Besenyő  and
Gregory Jasani
Raphael Wertz
Affiliation:
University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, USA
Benoit Stryckman
Affiliation:
University of Maryland, Baltimore, Maryland, USA
János Besenyő
Affiliation:
Óbuda University, Budapest, Central Hungary, Hungary
Gregory Jasani
Affiliation:
University of Maryland, Baltimore, Maryland, USA
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Abstract

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Objective

This study sought to compare terrorist attacks targeting healthcare in two different geographical areas that are economically and culturally similar: North America and Europe.

Methods

The Global Terrorism Database is a database that documents 214,666 worldwide terrorist events from 1970 to 2021. It was searched to identify terrorist attacks against healthcare using keywords. We manually excluded incidents that did not specifically relate to attacks on healthcare. This resulted in 311 and 150 entries in North America and Europe respectively.

Results

The most common method of attack in Europe was bombing (42%) compared to attacks on infrastructure (66%) in North America. The primary target in North America was abortion related (84%). In Europe, the primary target was businesses (37%). In Europe, 18.7% of attacks were assassinations or attempts vs 3% in North America. The total number of fatalities in Europe is 51 vs 3 in North America.

Conclusion

Even though there were significantly more attacks in North America, there were far fewer total fatalities compared to Europe. Attacks in North America appear to be ideological, targeting infrastructure to send a message. Whereas, in Europe, the targets and methods used are more targeted towards the individual and their property.

Type
Abstract
Information
Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness , Volume 18 , 2024 , e184
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Society for Disaster Medicine and Public Health, Inc

Footnotes

R.W. is primary author; B.S. and J.B. are co-authors; G.J. is last author.

Supplementary material: File

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