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Urge Better Treatment,
Training:
Findings to Spur Action Lorna Thorpe, Deputy Health Commissioner in the Division of Epidemiology, said in an interview before the event that the findings on asthma and PTSD among recovery workers could lead to better treatment and mitigate problems in the future. "The PTSD findings are also interesting," she said. "That really shows that workers who were working outside of their expertise area, doing tasks that they weren't trained to do, so whether it was police officers firefighting, firefighters doing hand-digging and rescue and recovery work, things like that, it put them at greater risk for developing post-traumatic stress disorder after the event." About one in eight of the 28,692 Ground Zero responders involved in the Health Registry's study experienced symptoms of PTSD, and Megan Perrin, a former scientist with the Health Registry, said in her presentation that the most adversely-affected group was unaffiliated volunteers, while police officers, at 6.2 percent, showed the least impact. Among firefighters working at Ground Zero participating in the survey, 12.2 percent had PTSD. For Emergency Medical Service employees, the number was 11.6 percent; 10.6 percent of Sanitation Workers were afflicted. "Mental health interventions are still necessary," Ms. Perrin said. "It also speaks to the fact that disaster preparedness training may prevent or at least reduce the adverse psychological distress associated with responding to future disasters." Ms. Thorpe added that in future disasters, there should be more rotations of workers so they are not working long shifts, and more needs to be done for 9/11 responders living with the condition. "Best practices tell us that trauma-specific therapy - really helping that patient go through their traumatic history - is more effective, potentially, than say just generally what is called cognitive behavioral therapy," she said. "And it's not entirely clear how effective medications are." Katherine Wheeler, a scientist with the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene's Bureau of Environmental Surveillance and Policy, explained that the 25,745 Ground Zero workers participating in the asthma study developed the respiratory ailment at a rate 12 times that of the general population. Factors such as working without a respirator and working close to Sept. 11, 2001 increased one's risk. 'Pile' Proximity Was Key "The longer you worked, the more likely you were to develop asthma," she said. "Workers who reported any tasks directly on the pile experienced a higher rate of new asthma compared to workers who were located somewhere outside of the pile between Chamber St. and Rector." Ms. Wheeler also pointed out some of the limitations of the study. The survey was voluntary, she said, meaning that healthy workers were less likely to participate. "Even if we assumed that all the workers who didn't enroll in the registry never developed asthma, we would still see an elevated rate compared to what was in the general population," Ms. Wheeler said. "We feel that our findings strongly support the need to be prepared for the health and safety of disaster responders." The results of both the asthma and PTSD studies were made public in August. City Put Up $100M Ms. Thorpe stressed that the findings led to City Hall's committing $100 million to medical monitoring and treatment for those suffering 9/11-related illnesses. "For city employees, from agencies that responded to the World Trade Center site, we've arranged for that to happen on city time," she said. Among the developments to help recovery workers coming out of these studies, Ms. Thorpe called attention to treatment and monitoring programs that city employees can utilize on city time. She added that the city has created a network of professionals to advise 9/11 responders on their treatment options.
"We've appointed liaisons in all of the major city
agencies to really translate a lot of this information to that agency's staff,"
she said. "So [we're] helping them through the jumble." | |||||
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