Impact of the world trade center disaster on blood pressure level and depression in a primary care practice in a hospital in New York City

Primary Health care and Disasters—The Current State of the Literature: What We Know, Gaps and Next Steps

“…Response Specific health issues/ diagnosis/ patterns of illness Mental health and chronic disease (5,10,16,33,40) overwhelmingly described as most important interventions soon after disaster.…”

“…13,14 Examples include surge capacity of the known health care providers, but also consideration of roles of lay people in the health response, as well as alternate models of care like the Canadian example of home based hospital care. 15 Response-Strong messages for disaster response include the need for mental health and chronic disease interventions 5,10,16,33,40 soon after the disaster and during conflicts, primary care team roles needing to be modified during disasters, 18 and the importance of identifying vulnerable groups [41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48] in disaster-affected communities. Models of care described include the use of mobile clinics, 49,50 the advantage of using distant sites to provide clinical care, and the importance of Disaster Medical Assistance Teams (DMAT) 42 and army hospitals 9 focusing on mostly primary health care services and only dedicating a smaller part of the work to other services like surgery.…”

“…2,4,10,59 Community health centers in the United States, by nature of their mandate to serve low income and medically underserved communities, identify equity as a key for the provision of primary healthcare in preparing and responding to disasters. 10 The healthcare and chronic disease (5,10,16,33,40) overwhelmingly described as most important interventions soon after disaster.…”