Environmental Public Health Impacts of Disasters: Hurricane Katrina
- When:
- Thursday, October 20, 2005 (8:00 AM)
- Topic(s):
- Environmental Health
- Activity:
- Roundtable on Environmental Health Sciences, Research, and Medicine
- Board(s):
- Board on Population Health and Public Health Practice
Hurricane Katrina made landfall on August 29, 2005 in the central Gulf Coast region of the United States, near New Orleans. The impacted region stretched from Alabama to Mississippi and encompassed approximately 90,000 square miles. As one of the largest natural disasters that the United States has experienced, the environmental health response created a number of challenges for local, state, and Federal governments; academia; community groups, and industry. The flood alone caused extensive water damage and mold to the buildings, and there was secondary contamination due to the flood water mixing with residential trash, industrial waste, and chemicals.
This workshop, one in a series of workshops sponsored by the Roundtable on Environmental Health Sciences, Research, and Medicine, focused on the environmental exposures in the region and the subsequent effects on human health. Speakers and participants discussed the extent of the environmental exposures and what additional information was necessary for the recovery process. Preliminary information and the assessment of previous disasters made it clear that a coordinated environmental health effort would be necessary. In this workshop, the discussions focused on issues surrounding rapid assessment and identification of environmentally-related diseases, impact of exposures on vulnerable populations, social and ethical issues, community involvement, and research tools that would need to be developed for the monitoring effort.