NEW ORLEANS – Seems the fallout from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita lives on. A new study shows that children who were displaced by these storms have serious mental and physical health issues.
The report was released by New York-based Children’s Health Fund. Researchers reviewed the medical records of over 260 kids from a FEMA funded Baton Rouge trailer park. The records came from a mobile clinic that was providing service to the area.
The findings were alarming:
1. Over 40 per cent of children under 4 had iron-deficiency anemia. Even New York City homeless shelters do not have that rate of iron deficiency.
2. Over half of the children between 5 and 13 had either a behavioral or learning problem.
3. Over 40 per cent of kids were diagnosed with either hay fever or upper respiratory infection. Some children had both.
4. Almost a quarter of the kids had a cluster of respiratory, allergic and skin ailments.
Pediatricians in the mobile clinic were shocked at the rates of disease in the children. Heidi Sinclair, a Baton Rouge pediatrician who helped run the clinic said that she thought the test machines were malfunctioning because she couldn’t believe that so many children could be sick with the same constellation of illnesses.
The CDC has indicated that it will begin a long-term study of the children from FEMA trailer parks to track health issues. Apparently, hundreds of the trailers used to house displaced families had high levels of various toxins, including formaldehyde. Exposure to these kinds of chemicals can have long-term consequences.
The trailer park at Baton Rouge was emptied this past summer with families moved to either permanent or other temporary housing. However, other families are not so lucky; another 9,300 are in trailers with an additional 1,600 in hotel rooms, waiting for proper housing to be made available.
The question remains regarding the children in other FEMA housing locations: many of them could experience similar symptoms. However, there are no other studies planned to review the overall health of displaced families and their children at this time.
Source: USA Today
