Decline in health among older adults affected by Hurricane Katrina
Thursday, January 22, 2009 - 14:14
in Health & Medicine
In the year following Hurricane Katrina, the health of survivors 65 and over declined nearly 4 times that of a national sample of older adults not affected by the disaster, according to a study led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The August 2005 storm was one of the most powerful and deadliest hurricanes in U.S. history. Hurricane Katrina displaced thousands and severely disrupted access to health care. Researchers monitored enrollees of a New Orleans-area managed care organization and found morbidity rates increased 12.6 percent compared with 3.4 percent nationwide. The results are published in the January issue of The American Journal of Managed Care.