Mortality among Fire Department of the City of New York Rescue and Recovery Workers Exposed to the World Trade Center Disaster, 2001–2017

Hilary L. Colbeth, Rachel Zeig-Owens, Charles B. Hall, Mayris P. Webber, Theresa M. Schwartz and David J. Prezant
Additional contact information
Hilary L. Colbeth: Fire Department of the City of New York, Bureau of Health Services, 9 Metrotech Center, Brooklyn, NY 11201, USA
Rachel Zeig-Owens: Fire Department of the City of New York, Bureau of Health Services, 9 Metrotech Center, Brooklyn, NY 11201, USA
Charles B. Hall: Department of Epidemiology and Population Health, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY 10461, USA
Mayris P. Webber: Fire Department of the City of New York, Bureau of Health Services, 9 Metrotech Center, Brooklyn, NY 11201, USA
Theresa M. Schwartz: Fire Department of the City of New York, Bureau of Health Services, 9 Metrotech Center, Brooklyn, NY 11201, USA
David J. Prezant: Fire Department of the City of New York, Bureau of Health Services, 9 Metrotech Center, Brooklyn, NY 11201, USA

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 17, 1-16

Abstract: The World Trade Center (WTC) attacks on 9/11/2001 have consistently been associated with elevated rates of physical and mental health morbidities, while evidence about mortality has been limited. We examined mortality between 9/12/2001 and 12/31/2017 among 15,431 WTC-exposed Fire Department of the City of New York (FDNY) firefighters and emergency medical service providers (EMS), specifically assessing associations between intensity of WTC-exposure and mortality risk. Standardized mortality ratios (SMR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) compared FDNY cohort mortality with the US general population using life table analysis. Deaths were identified via linkage to the National Death Index. Cox proportional hazards regression models were used to identify associations between intensity of WTC-exposure and mortality, accounting for age, sex, race/ethnicity, smoking history, and other relevant confounders. We identified 546 deaths and a lower than expected all-cause mortality rate (SMR = 0.34; 95% CI, 0.31–0.37). No cause-specific SMRs were meaningfully elevated. Mortality hazard ratios showed no association or linear trend with level of WTC-exposure. Our results provide evidence of the healthy worker effect, despite exposure to the World Trade Center. More follow-up time may be needed to assess the full impact of WTC-exposure on mortality in this occupational population.

Keywords: mortality; disaster epidemiology; world trade center; rescue/recovery workers; occupational exposure (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/17/6266/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/17/6266/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:17:y:2020:i:17:p:6266-:d:405393

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().