Towards an Assessment of the Severity of Human Casualties in Terrorist Acts Committed by Conventional Means of Destruction

Summary. Objectives of the study are as follows: on the basis of studying and analyzing methodological approaches to assessing the severity of human losses in terrorist acts committed with the use of conventional means of destruction to develop proposals for further improvement of these methodological approaches; to assess the severity of human losses being the result of terrorist attacks committed on the territory of Russia in 1999-2005.

Materials and research methods. The materials of the research are normative and methodical documents regulating the procedure of assessment of human losses in emergency situations, including terrorist acts; reports of territorial centers for disaster medicine about terrorist acts committed on the territory of Russia in 1999-2005; data of survey maps and expert evaluation of the subject of the research; scientific works and publications devoted to methods of assessment of severity of consequences of emergency situations and terrorist acts. The following scientific methods were used in the study: content analysis method, method of expert evaluation, statistical and analytical methods.

Results of the study and their analysis. The results of the study of methodological approaches to assessing the severity of human losses in terrorist attacks and other emergencies are presented. Reasoned proposals are made to improve the methodological approaches to assessing the severity of human losses in terrorist acts and to use a comprehensive integral methodological approach for this purpose. The results of the research have shown that the existing technologies of determining the severity of human losses in terrorist attacks do not allow to have objective and complete reliable data on the injured, on the volume and specificity of work performed by medical workers in providing medical care and medical evacuation in the course of saving lives and preserving health of the injured in terrorist attacks. Using the proposed complex integral methodological approach, an assessment of the severity of human losses in terrorist acts committed on the territory of Russia in 1999-2005 is given.