Society faces immense challenges when natural hazards and disease outbreaks co-occur. For example, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the immediate response after natural hazard events was often complicated, because of travel restrictions and local lockdown measures. This arguably led to increased exposure to other hazards such as earthquakes or tropical cyclones (e.g. the 2020 Zagreb earthquake, tropical cyclones Eta and Iota in Honduras). Natural hazards can also trigger the outbreak of diseases, such as cholera and outbreaks following the devastating floods in Pakistan in August 2022. The co-occurrence of natural hazards and diseases creates cascading effects that worsen the overall impact. Consequently, natural hazards can be associated with public health emergencies. A limited understanding of these cascading impacts creates operational, ethical, and decision-making challenges for society, disaster management, and humanitarian organisations.

Building on the RiskKAN working group on disasters and diseases and the NHESS special issue "The convergence of disasters, diseases and health impacts", this session invites contributions on:
- the probability and dynamics of (climate-sensitive) disease outbreaks following natural hazards;
- health and health-system impacts as components of disaster risk;
- the compounding of hazard exposure and disease burden under climate change;
- integration of health metrics into multi-hazard risk frameworks;
- new measurement approaches, including remote sensing combined with public health and socio-demographic data;
- disease risk modeling for early warning systems and anticipatory action;
- and the synergies and trade-offs of disaster risk reduction measures in outbreak contexts.

This session focuses on hazard events and their interaction with disease dynamics and health systems, and the consequences for disaster risk management. We welcome quantitative, qualitative and mixed-methods work at any scale, and particularly encourage submissions from epidemiology, public health and humanitarian practice.