An Analysis of the Deaths Reported by Hurricane Maria: A Mini Review

The purpose of this mini review is to analyze the controversies surrounding the official death toll of Hurricane Maria, driven by the estimates of excess mortality rates by academics and investigative journalists. This review will be a critique of the aforementioned analyses and articles with the purpose of clarifying their figures, which all present different numbers of victims. In three publications (i.e., Kishore et al., 2018; Santos-Lozada et al., 2018; GWU, 2018), the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico reported different numbers of victims in the aftermath of HM on September 20, 2017. Since the occurrence of HM in PR, the reported number of victims of this disaster has varied. According to the PR government, the official number of deaths is 64 CPI (2017), while Kishore et al.’s (2018) report puts the figure at 4,645 and 2,975 deaths, as reported by George Washington University. This article analyzes why these sources disagree on the number of the dead and the possible reasons why there are discrepancies.