**9. Conclusions**

Lightning is a significant cause of weather-related death and injury across Africa [1, 5, 40]. While it is a largely preventable death in developed countries where "lightning-safe" areas are usually readily available and within a few feet of those threatened [1, 17, 18, 60, 77], the majority of sub-Saharan Africans are at risk 24/7/365 due to living in dwellings that are not lightning-safe. Further risk factors include engaging in largely outdoor, labor-intensive work such as farming and shepherding [39]. Worshippers often meeting outdoors and children walking to or attending school, roadside shopkeepers, those walking to the market, working in mines, or other outdoor activities are also all at risk [1, 42]. Poor or nonexistent lightning detection systems, little or no incorporation of lightning data into forecasting, no warnings to the public and those at risk, cultural beliefs, and many other factors keep injuries, deaths, and property damage from lightning a substantial threat to entire families, schools, villages, and populations [1].

ACLENet was founded to address many aspects of lightning safety, public education, and injury prevention and to work with governments and other agencies with similar goals [89].

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**Author details**

Mary Ann Cooper1

Oro Valley, AZ, USA

Kampala, Uganda

Forest, IL, USA

\*, Ronald L. Holle2

\*Address all correspondence to: macooper@uic.edu

provided the original work is properly cited.

and Richard Tushemereirwe3

1 ACLENet (African Centres for Lightning and Electromagnetics Network), River

2 ACLENet (African Centres for Lightning and Electromagnetics Network),

3 ACLENet (African Centres for Lightning and Electromagnetics Network),

© 2019 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,

*Mitigating the Hazard of Lightning Injury and Death across Africa*

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.90468*

*Mitigating the Hazard of Lightning Injury and Death across Africa DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.90468*
