In April 2006 and January 2007, CHF and the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at the Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University released the results of the first and second stages of a comprehensive rapid health assessment of families displaced due to Hurricane Katrina.
The results suggest that these children and families are in the midst of a public health and mental health crisis – chronic diseases are going untreated, clinical-level anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder are on the rise, and the fragile safety nets that had protected these vulnerable populations in the past have been badly shredded by the hurricanes and their aftermath. [Read the survey reports and more]
In addition, our scientists from the Mailman School of Public Health, Department of Environmental Health Sciences are working in partnership with the Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine to conduct a series of studies of mold exposure and respiratory health in school-aged children evacuated from New Orleans. Phase I measured the lung function of children in one school in Jefferson Parish while providing some of them with home sampling equipment. Since our clinicians have reported that children who did not previously require medication to control asthma now do, the findings from this study that document mold and other environmental triggers will be very critical. Phase II of this project will commence in September 2006 in a second school.
