Crisis survival depends on more than individual supplies. Recent emergency-preparedness data shows how often countries face hazards, how widely they plan for them, and where public confidence and response capacity remain uneven. The figures below combine global WHO assessments with U.S. FEMA and USFA findings; dates and geographies are kept explicit because these are not interchangeable measures.
Contents
- How common are emergencies?
- What national preparedness looks like
- Which hazards appear most often
- Public readiness and protective actions
- Health and mental-health consequences
- What Sudan shows about compounding crises
- U.S. response capacity
How common are emergencies?
The WHO Global Assessment of National Health Sector Emergency Preparedness and Response found that 98% of respondents said their countries were exposed to natural hazards. Social hazards were reported by 73%, while technological hazards were reported by 47%. These are country-level reports of exposure, not a forecast of an individual household’s probability of being affected.
Emergency or disaster experience in the prior five years varied by WHO region. The reported share ranged from 73% in Europe to 100% in Africa, the Eastern Mediterranean, and the Western Pacific. Region-specific results were 74% in the Americas/PAHO grouping, 84% in the Eastern Mediterranean, 66% in Europe, 89% in South-East Asia, 100% in Africa, and 100% in the Western Pacific.
The same assessment found that the majority of respondents in every WHO region had direct personal or professional emergency or disaster experience, with regional results ranging from 89% to 100%. The respondents were also closely connected to emergency planning: 35 people, or 56%, were national coordinators or focal points for health emergencies; 10, or 16%, were directors of prevention and control or similar public-health roles; 12, or 19%, held general health posts; and 5, or 8%, were in other roles such as civil defence or WHO.
What national preparedness looks like
The WHO assessment reported that 85% of surveyed countries had a national emergency preparedness and response policy. However, the policy details were less universal. In 69% of countries, the policy included development of a national, multidisciplinary health emergency preparedness and response plan. Only 50% said the policy mandated regular simulation exercises at all relevant levels.
Institutional coordination was more common: 89% reported multisectoral committees for emergency preparedness and response. Emergency preparedness and response appeared in key ministry personnel job descriptions in 84% of countries.
Regional differences were substantial. The African region reported the lowest level for having a national emergency preparedness and response policy, at 60%. The Americas and Western Pacific each reported 100%.
The WHO assessment also found that 66% of countries had a health emergency preparedness and response programme including hazard analysis and vulnerability assessment, public awareness, early warning, and communication systems. Half reported programmes with simulation exercises, logistics platforms, and emergency information systems. More than one-third did not include a training and capacity-building component. Among countries reporting international collaboration, WHO was involved in about two-thirds.
These figures describe the presence of policies and programme components, not how well a plan performs during a specific crisis. For households, they still offer a useful signal: preparedness is strongest when risk assessment, warnings, communications, practice, logistics, and training are treated as connected tasks.
Which hazards appear most often
In the WHO assessment, countries reported the following hazards as experienced during the prior five years:
| Hazard | Countries reporting experience |
|---|---|
| Floods | 46% |
| Earthquakes | 43% |
| Avalanche and snowstorms | 31% |
| Severe storms | 26% |
| Droughts | 15% |
| Forest fires | 8% |
| Tsunamis | 6.5% |
| Volcanic eruptions | 6.5% |
Severe storms in this source include hurricanes, cyclones, typhoons, or tornadoes. The percentages are the shares of surveyed countries reporting each hazard, so they should not be read as a global personal-risk ranking. Floods and earthquakes were the two most frequently reported hazards in this list, at 46% and 43% respectively.
The WHO’s global surveillance system picks up about 7,000 public-health threat signals every month and operates 24/7/365. More than 1,600 partners worldwide support rapid detection and response. Those figures describe the scale of institutional monitoring rather than the number of confirmed emergencies.
Public readiness and protective actions
FEMA’s 2024 National Preparedness Report, drawing on the 2023 National Household Survey, found that 77% of both urban and rural respondents believed they would likely be impacted by disasters in the coming year. Awareness of risk was therefore high in both settings.
Confidence in preparedness actions was lower. Only 50% of respondents believed disaster-preparedness actions would get them through a disaster scenario. Only 14% got involved with their communities to take preparedness actions.
FEMA has assessed more than 380 protective actions using 275 research studies and articles across 12 natural hazards. The breadth of that review indicates that “preparedness” is not one single behavior; protective actions differ by hazard and circumstance. A household plan should therefore match its local hazards, warning methods, evacuation routes, shelter options, medical needs, and communication constraints.
FEMA’s Ready campaign launched in February 2003. The National Risk Index covers 18 of the United States’ most common natural hazards. Together, these FEMA resources frame preparedness as an ongoing public activity rather than a one-time purchase.
Health and mental-health consequences
WHO says more than half of deaths and more than a third of disability in low- and middle-income countries could be addressed by effective emergency and critical care. This is a broad global statement about potential impact, not a prediction for a particular disaster.
WHO reports that one in five people living through emergencies experience a mental-health condition, about twice the global average. Almost all people affected by emergencies experience psychological distress. Among people who experienced war or conflict during the previous 10 years, WHO reports that 22% had depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, bipolar disorder, or schizophrenia.
In 2024, WHO provided life-saving psychotropic medicines to 2.1 million people with severe mental illness in conflict settings. These figures make psychological first aid, continuity of medication, and access to care relevant parts of crisis planning alongside food, water, shelter, and first aid.
What Sudan shows about compounding crises
WHO’s Public Health Situation Analysis for the Sudan conflict and complex emergency illustrates how conflict, displacement, malnutrition, injury, outbreaks, and chronic disease can compound one another. Before the current conflict, the global acute malnutrition rate among children under five in Sudan was 13.6%. The situation analysis reported that 60% of localities exceeded WHO’s 15% “very high” GAM threshold, and more than 80% of surveyed localities in Darfur exceeded it.
More than 770,000 children were suffering from severe acute malnutrition, including more than 116,000 children with life-threatening severe acute malnutrition complications. Malnutrition affected 38% of pregnant and lactating women and 60% of girls aged 15–19. More than 40,000 people had been injured in the conflict, while 700,000 civilians were trapped in the Al Fasher siege without food or medicine.
The outbreak figures show why emergency planning must account for several threats at once. Sudan’s cholera outbreak reached all 18 states and 151 localities, with 123,611 suspected cases and 3,565 deaths, a 2.9% case-fatality rate. Between January and November 2025, 46,124 suspected dengue cases and 129 deaths were reported, a 0.3% case-fatality rate. Sudan reported more than 2.1 million malaria cases in 2025 across 13 states. A later 2025 update reported 5,811 suspected measles cases and 9 deaths, a 0.2% case-fatality rate.
Chronic and mental-health needs also persisted. NCD-related mortality in Sudan rose from 32% in 2015 to 54% in 2022. In 2020, Sudan had only 899 mental-health professionals across all sectors. More than 50% of displaced populations were reported to have depression, anxiety, or PTSD, and more than one in five people in conflict zones were reported to have a mental-health condition.
U.S. response capacity
As of 2022, the United States had nearly 30,000 fire departments, according to USFA’s NFIRSGram. About 72% of fire departments reported their fire incident data to the National Fire Incident Reporting System. The reporting share is important context when interpreting national fire data: it indicates broad participation, but not universal coverage.
The USFA and FEMA figures also show why personal preparedness and public systems work together. Fire departments provide response capacity, while household actions influence evacuation, communication, medical continuity, and the ability to manage the first period before help arrives. FEMA’s survey finding that only half of respondents trusted preparedness actions to get them through a disaster, alongside the 14% community-participation figure, identifies a practical gap between recognizing risk and practicing response.
For everyday preparedness, the most useful reading of these statistics is specific rather than dramatic: identify the hazards most relevant to your location, keep warnings and contacts accessible, plan for medication and mental-health needs, practice the actions your household may need to take, and connect those plans to local community resources.