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Int J Environ Res Public Health 2022 Jun 10;19(12). Epub 2022 Jun 10.

World Trade Center Health Registry, New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, New York, NY 11101, USA.

The September 11th World Trade Center (WTC) disaster resulted in an elevated prevalence of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) among those directly exposed, yet lower than expected rates of mental health treatment seeking and high levels of reported perceived unmet mental healthcare need were observed in this population in the years following. Self-efficacy, an individual's self-perception of their ability to succeed in specific situations or accomplish a task or goal, may in part explain this discrepancy; however, little is known about its interplay with the help-seeking behaviors of disaster-exposed populations. We used WTC Health Registry data ( = 11,851) to describe the relationship between self-efficacy and three outcomes related to help-seeking behavior: (1) seeking mental health treatment, (2) perceived unmet mental health care needs, and (3) satisfaction with mental health treatment. Read More

Int J Environ Res Public Health 2022 Jun 7;19(12). Epub 2022 Jun 7.

Department of Medicine, Renaissance School of Medicine, Stony Brook University (SUNY), Stony Brook, NY 11794, USA.

The individuals who served our country in the aftermath of the attacks on the World Trade Center (WTC) following the attacks of 11 September 2001 have, since then, been diagnosed with a number of conditions as a result of their exposures. In the present study, we sought to determine whether these conditions were risk factors for increased COVID-19 disease severity within a cohort of N = 1280 WTC responders with complete information on health outcomes prior to and following COVID-19 infection. We collected data on responders diagnosed with COVID-19, or had evidence of receiving positive SARS-CoV-2 polymerase chain reaction or antigen testing, or were asymptomatic but had IgG positive antibody testing. Read More

J Burn Care Res 2022 Jun 22. Epub 2022 Jun 22.

Department of Clinical Neurosciences, Pediatrics and Surgery, Foothills Medical Centre, 1403-29 Street NW, Calgary, Alberta T2N 2T9, Canada.

The resources needed to deliver modern burn care may be overwhelmed by mass casualty disasters. In 2021, the World Health Organization (WHO) recommended that countries prepare teams of deployable burn experts to assist with responding to a mass casualty disaster. The aim of this scoping review was to identify existing literature regarding burn mobile response team organization, describe the reported effectiveness of these teams, identify challenges in adopting the WHO recommendations, and consider how the recommendations may be reconsidered. Read More

J Int Bioethique Ethique Sci 2022 ;33(1):85-101

There are many reasons why we might think that the human species might be in danger. We talk about global warming which produces major unusual natural disasters; increasingly destructive weapons; serious terrorist attacks with chemical weapons, etc. But we cannot ignore one of the threats hanging over the human species, which is transhumanism or posthumanism. Read More