Clinical Center for Monitoring Health in WTC Responders

Details

• Personal Author:
  Udasin IG
• Description:
  An estimated 40,000 men and women worked at Ground Zero, the former site of the World Trade Center in New York City, and at the Staten Island landfill, the principal wreckage depository. Firefighters, law enforcement officers, paramedics, construction workers, utility workers, volunteers, and others carried out rescue-and-recovery operations, restored essential services, cleaned up massive amounts of debris and, in a time period far shorter than anticipated, deconstructed and removed remains of buildings. The diverse worker and volunteer group included operating engineers, laborers, ironworkers, railway tunnel cleaners, telecommunications workers, and workers at the landfill and the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. Many had no training in response to civil disaster. The highly diverse nature of this workforce posed unprecedented challenges for worker protection and medical follow-up. Workers at or near the WTC site potentially sustained exposures to: 1) a range of environmental toxins, including cement and glass dust, asbestos, fiberglass, respirable and larger particulate matter-much of it highly alkaline, as well as lead and other heavy metals; PCB's, dibenzofurans, volatile organic compounds and other products of combustion; 2) psychological trauma; and 3) physical hazards including fire, collapsing buildings, falling debris, noise, and extremes of temperature. Dust and debris gradually settled, and rains on 9114 diminished the intensity of outdoor ambient dust exposure somewhat. However, rubble removal processes repeatedly reaerosolized the dust, leading to continuing intermittent exposure for many months. Fires burned both above and underground until December 2001. Levels of certain contaminants remained high well into 2002, with spikes in both benzene and asbestos levels, for example, as late as March and May 2002 respectively. The specific purpose of this study was to enroll and monitor the health of those individuals who sustained exposures at or near "Ground Zero" of the WTC site during rescue and recovery activities; the study has identified those with persistent WTC-related medical conditions. These clinical assessments have also served to establish "baseline" clinical status for individuals exposed at or near "Ground Zero" for purposes of comparisons with future clinical assessments for diseases with longer latency. This study also was able to provide comprehensive health monitoring and treatment services for WTC related conditions in WTC responders, assist WTC responders to secure health benefits, workers' compensation and other appropriate services, and has begun to engage in bi-directional communication of program results for aggregation and analysis and to disseminate program results to WTC responders, other relevant parties, and the general public. On a broader goal, this study has developed a comprehensive database of medical assessments for rescue, recovery, volunteer and other workers exposed to hazards of the World Trade Center site in the aftermath of September 11, 2001, so that this knowledge will hopefully be utilized to prevent the degree of illness and InJury m subsequent populations that respond to national disasters. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Air Pollutants, Occupational Emergency Responders Environmental Exposure Health Care Facilities Workforce And Services Occupational Health Safety September 11 Terrorist Attacks
• Keywords:
  Air Contamination Disaster Clean-up Disaster Recovery Environmental Exposure Medical Monitoring Psychological Responses Rescue Workers World Trade Center WTC
• Series:
  Grant Final Reports
• Publisher:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Cooperative Agreement
• Genre:
  Final Cooperative Agreement Report
• Place as Subject:
  New Jersey ; OSHA Region 2
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Division:
  OEP - Office of Extramural Programs
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  1-13
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20055224
• Citation:
  Atlanta, GA: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, U10-OH-008239, 2011 Sep; :1-13
• Contact Point Address:
  Iris G.Udasin MD, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School (RWJMS), University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ), 170 Frelinghuysen Road, Piscataway, NJ 08854
• Email:
  udasin@eohsi.rutgers.edu
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2011
• NORA Priority Area:
  Services
• Performing Organization:
  University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey - Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Piscataway
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Start Date:
  20040701
• Source Full Name:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• End Date:
  20111230
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:0a6c6f4dda2189a7c38ae3004fecb0449d84c2019d7717fc74ad9f350be6201378da1467cd2cf9cadbb96eab61af65c6862ed9f1e1f46c1c47a06a4df826fbb1
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/218839/cdc_218839_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 202.95 KB ]