Report: Health effects of Hurricane Sandy still linger
Philadelphia Inquirer (PA)Jul 30, 2015
More attention should be paid to the emotional consequences of housing damage, including mold, the report stated. Surprisingly, children who lived in homes with minor damage were even more likely than those in homes with major damage to feel sad or depressed or have trouble sleeping.
"We're definitely still hearing about the issues and the problems," said
"Is it depressing? You better believe it is,"
"My husband and I, we've gone through some really dark days over this housing issue . . . to the point where I thought he really wasn't going to make it,"
"The anxiety is really with you 100 percent of the time," she said. "It just really changes everything."
A separate report by the same researchers called for developing more effective ways to prod residents of high-risk areas to evacuate as storms approach. Only 28 percent of residents in mandatory evacuation areas actually left town.
This week's reports, labeled "Place" and "Person," were the first two of four. The project involves researchers from Rutgers,
The reports are based on in-person, hour-long interviews of 1,000 adults who live within the nine-county region most affected by the
"We've said from the beginning that this was going to take years," she said.
The department has asked for federal funding to extend a screening program for behavioral health problems through
The Sandy research project was modeled on a similar one in
Abramson also noted that people who had experienced major structural damage had similar "economic burdens" to people in poverty, including trouble paying for rent or mortgages, utilities, transportation, and food.
Researchers said emotional problems take a backseat soon after a disaster as everyone focuses on immediate physical needs. Yet, Abramson said, federal crisis counseling programs typically end after 18 months, too soon to catch all the problems that may develop.
"Seeing mental-health effects coming out now is not surprising as we're resolving some of the bigger things," Findley said.
Abramson said the best way to head off long-term emotional problems was to address underlying issues such as uncertainty, disruption, and financial distress.
He said it would be years before researchers knew about the health consequences of disaster-related stress.
The researchers found that people who had mold in their homes after the storm were more likely to have been diagnosed with asthma. They were also twice as likely to report mental-health "distress," a measure that includes people with heightened anxiety and more serious emotional problems.
As for why minor problems would hurt more than major ones, Abramson suspects that repairs were more likely to be made in homes with major damage. Children in homes with minor damage might live with constant reminders that life has not returned to normal. In addition, the damage could lead to stressed-out parents.
"It's a reminder," he said, "that any state would be well advised to alert child-serving institutions . . . to be aware of the relationships between these ongoing stressors in children's lives and the kind of mental-health effects they might have."
215-854-4944@StaceyABurling
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