9/11 emergency workers suffer chronic health issues: study

New York – Emergency medical workers have endured chronic health conditions as a result of aiding victims of the 2001 World Trade Center terrorist attack, indicates a study from the New York City Fire Department and Montefiore Medical Center.

Researchers observed the health of more than 2,000 emergency workers from the fire department from Sept. 11, 2001, through December 2013.

Emergency workers who arrived earliest to the scene were at highest risk of physical and mental health issues, researchers concluded. Those workers were 7 times as likely to have probable post-traumatic stress disorder, twice as likely to have probable depression and nearly 4 times as likely to have acid reflux and rhinosinusitis.

Workers had a higher risk for a diagnosis when their work was “more intense,” a press release states.

The study was published April 15 in Occupational & Environmental Medicine.