For Many, 9/11-Linked Trauma Emerged Years Later

Rates of reported PTSD climbed 5 years after the attacks, but asthma rates have steadily fallen, study finds

By Amanda Gardner
HealthDay Reporter

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TUESDAY, Aug. 4 (HealthDay News) -- People directly exposed to the horrors of the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center in New York City were reporting new symptoms of post-traumatic stress as long as five and six years after the incident, a new study has found.

In fact, by 2006-2007, more people directly exposed to the event were reporting post-traumatic stress symptoms than in 2003-2004, the study found, and they were about four times more likely than the general population to have such symptoms.

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Asthma rates, however, had declined to more or less normal rates by 2007, after being elevated in the months right after the attack, the study reported. The findings are published in the Aug. 5 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Asthma and symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) have proven to be the most enduring health consequences of 9/11.

"Five to six years after the event, we found that the vast majority of these people are healthy, but we did find that asthma and PTSD symptoms were elevated," said Lorna Thorpe, senior author of the study and deputy commissioner for epidemiology at the New York City Health Department. "Those elevations were directly correlated with specific 9/11 exposures."

Thousands of people were exposed to the attack, and the World Trade Center Registry was established soon after to follow and document health consequences of the event, especially among rescue workers, residents and passers-by in lower Manhattan at the time.

Of the more than 46,000 people who filled out questionnaires for the latest study, slightly more than 19 percent reported symptoms of post-traumatic stress in 2006-2007, compared with about 14 percent in 2003-2004. None of them had reported such symptoms before 9/11, according to the study.

Groups with the highest levels of chronic post-traumatic stress symptoms were commuters, tourists and other passers-by, with 23 percent reporting symptoms in 2006-2007. Office workers were most likely to have had their symptoms dissipate, and rescue-and-recovery workers were more likely to have developed symptoms later.

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