Citation

Horn RB, Kirsch TD. Am. J. Public Health 2018; 108(Suppl 3): S202-S203.

Affiliation

Rebecca B. Horn is with ChronAid International, Washington, DC, and Huntingdon Valley Anesthesia Associates, Meadowbrook, PA. Thomas D. Kirsch is with the National Center for Disaster Medicine and Public Health and the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Washington, DC.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2018, American Public Health Association)

DOI

10.2105/AJPH.2018.304604

PMID

30192662

Abstract

Globally and in the United States, 2017 was the most expensive year for disasters ever recorded. Disasters caused more than $337 billion in economic losses worldwide.1 In the United States, the federal government provided nearly $100 billion in emergency supplemental funding to respond to and recover from recent hurricanes, wildfires, and other disasters.

The recent experiences of Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria devastated large swaths of the United States and US territories, but their effects are, unfortunately, not new. In 2005, Hurricane Katrina flooded approximately 80% of New Orleans, Louisiana, and decimated the health infrastructure, destroying hospitals, clinics, dialysis centers, and other critical health infrastructure for weeks. A critical problem in the resulting health crisis was “the inability of the displaced population to manage their chronic diseases.”2(p1546) The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that chronic, noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) accounted for five of the six most commonly reported conditions after Hurricane Katrina.3 More than 45% of evacuees did not bring their daily medications with them, and so more than two thirds of all medications provided during the response were for the treatment of chronic diseases ...

Language: en