Coastal Drowning Trends: Costa Rican Nationals vs Visitors
A surfer prepares to enter the water at Santa Teresa Beach, Provincia de Puntarenas, Costa Rica
Costa Rica has some of the world's best beaches and is a top-rated global tourist destination. Unfortunately, Costa Rican beaches are also dangerous and drowning among tourists has been a particular problem. This new paper presents a comprehensive analysis of demographic, spatial, and temporal differences in coastal drowning trends between Costa Rican nationals and visiting foreigners.
The article was published recently in the journal Natural Hazards and is available to read for free here.
Dra. Laura Segura measuring coastal erosion & beach profiles in September 2020 at Espadilla Beach, Quepos, Costa Rica.
This research was led by Dra. Laura Segura from Universidad Nacional de Costa Rica, with co-authors Dra. Isabel Arozarena from Universidad Nacional de Costa Rica, William Koon from the UNSW Beach Safety Research Group, and Dr. Alejandro Gutiérrez from the Universidad Nacional de Costa Rica. Sadly, Laura died from breast cancer in December 2020, before this manuscript was published. This work is dedicated to Laura, who spent the last months of her life working on this paper and managing a separate project studying the rip current hazard on the six most deadly Costa Rican beaches. Laura was an excellent scientist, better colleague, and amazing person. Costa Rican beach safety efforts are better informed from her work.
Costa Rica has very high quality data on unintentional fatalities, including drowning. The Organismo de Investigación Judicial (OIJ) is a branch of the national government that investigates unintentional deaths and maintains a robust database with details on each event including forensic information from each case. This database has been used in previous research on coastal drowning in Costa Rica (see Dra. Isabel Arozarena's 2015 paper here), and has spurred beach safety initiatives by the US Embassy, The Costa Rican Red Cross, Universidad Nacional, and the Costa Rican Institute of Tourism. These data and the advocacy of many Costa Rican coastal safety stakeholders were instrumental in the passing of a national lifeguard law in 2019.
Dr. Arozarena's previous work from 2015 identified variation in demographic characteristics and spatiotemporal trends between national and foreigner fatal beach drowning events in the county. The goal of the present study was to extend this analysis by including additional years of data and focus on geographic areas of increased incidence. Ultimately, this research was motivated by a desire to further understand the populations at risk of drowning at Costa Rican beaches to improve education and intervention efforts and save lives.
In the 19-year study period (2001-2019), 936 people died from drowning at coastal locations in Costa Rica; 62% were Costa Rican nationals and 38% were foreigners haling form 36 different countries. Of the foreigners, 40% were from the USA, 19% were from Europe and 16% were from Nicaragua. Men represented the majority of deaths for both nationals and foreigners, consistent with other coastal drowning studies, however, further analysis identified variability between the groups.
Costa Rican decedents tended to be single male teenagers and young adults. This is consistent with trends in the USA and France (see this and this), and recent work by Dr. Jaz Lawes and the team at Surf Life Saving Australia explored coastal drowning fatalities among young men in Australia. In contrast, foreigners who died from drowning at Costa Rican beaches tended to be older males. Further investigation into when and where drowning deaths occurred in each group indicated these trends may be controlled by societal, economic, and meteorological factors. For example, some provinces saw increases in the number of drowning fatalities during periods of tourism infrastructure expansion, and decreasing drowning deaths during periods of economic downturn and seasons with unfavourable weather (cooler temperatures and rain).
This work provides important new evidence defining the populations at risk of drowning at Costa Rican beaches. Future prevention efforts should consider the differences between foreign tourist and Costa Rica national drowning profiles and prioritize tailored initiatives for each. Strong partnership between multiple stakeholders is required, hopefully this new research spurs new action to keep people safe at Costa Rica's incredible beaches.
Celebramos la vida de Dra. Laura Elena Segura Mena
Laura completed her PhD at the University of Western Australia, studying beach morphodynamics change over short and long-term time periods. Upon her return to Costa Rica, Laura joined the faculty at the Universidad Nacional de Costa Rica and dedicated much of her research to beach safety, specifically to improving the understanding of the rip current hazard at Costa Rican beaches.