Assessing short-term and long-term mental health effects among older adults after Hurricane Sandy.

Autor: Begum TF; Department of Environmental Health Sciences, University at Albany, State University of New York, Rensselaer, NY, United States., Lin Z; Department of Environmental Health Sciences, University at Albany, State University of New York, Rensselaer, NY, United States; Department of Psychiatry, NYU Grossman School of Medicine, New York, NY, United States., Primeau M; Office of Health Emergency Preparedness, New York State Department of Health, Albany, NY, United States., Lin S; Department of Environmental Health Sciences, University at Albany, State University of New York, Rensselaer, NY, United States; Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University at Albany, State University of New York, Rensselaer, NY, United States. Electronic address: slin@albany.edu.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: The Science of the total environment [Sci Total Environ] 2022 Jun 15; Vol. 825, pp. 153753. Date of Electronic Publication: 2022 Feb 10.
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.153753
Abstrakt: Background: Few studies have evaluated the long-term effects of disasters on older adults. We examined if older individuals experienced increased mental health (MH) effects immediately and long-term after Hurricane Sandy and if these effects varied by socioeconomic status (SES), disease subtypes, number of comorbidities, and length of stay.
Methods: We identified older patients (≥64 years) with hospital admissions and Emergency Department (ED) visits (2001-2015) with primary diagnosis of MH diseases using the New York State discharged data. We quantified both short-term (immediately post-Sandy) and long-term effects (3-month, 1-year, 2-year, and 3-year) following Hurricane Sandy, and used the pre-Sandy period in the affected counties as the control period. Poisson regression was used to compare daily counts of MH cases overall and by multiple strata pre-/post Sandy.
Findings: Older individuals had significantly increased risk of MH ED visits immediately (32%), and 3-months, 1, 2, and 3-years after Sandy (2%, 9%, 15%, and 10%, respectively). MH hospital admissions did not increase immediately, but significantly increased by 8% a year later. Males and those with low SES had delayed, but increased risks of MH 1-3 years after Sandy (RRs range: 1.14-1.71). The top MH subtypes after Sandy were psychosis, mood disorders, substance abuse, suicide, and anxiety (RRs range: 1.12-2.62). After Sandy, patients with ≥8 comorbidities increased from 15% to >25%, along with their length of hospital stay.
Conclusion: We found long-term adverse effects of MH after Sandy, especially among vulnerable populations, which may help plan future disaster preparedness and recovery efforts.
Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
(Copyright © 2022 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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