The study, carried out by the New York City Health Department, shows high levels of PTSD in residents living near the World Trade Center. The high level of PTSD seen - one in eight residents living near ground zero on that fateful day, or 12.6%, showed the symptoms now – tells a tale in itself about the scars the incident has left.
This rate, 12.6%, is more or less the same as the rate of PTSD that rescue and recovery workers at the site displayed, which was 12.4%. The rate is, of course, abnormal and is in fact three times the normal PTSD rate.
The New York City Health Department, based its study on surveys undertaken on 11,000 residents of the area, who were identified through the World Trade Center Health Registry.
According to the study, the grouping that displayed the maximum rate of PTSD symptoms, at 38%, consisted of injured residents. Next were the people who actually witnessed death in some of the most violent ways and also people who were engulfed in the dust clouds generated by the collapse of the World Trade Center buildings.
The study also threw light on other areas that 9/11 had impacted, such as marriage. Divorced people exhibited two times the rate of PTSD symptoms than married people. – 21.5% vs. 9.5%. Researchers said this could be because married people had more access to emotional support than those who were divorced.
The numbers varied significantly in men and women as well. While 15% of the women exhibited PTSD symptoms, the number for the men stood at 10%. When looked at from the perspective of ethnicity, the Hispanic and African-American populations showed significantly high PTSD symptom rates than the white and Asian populations – 24.7% and 20.6% vs. 10.7% and 8.9% respectively.
From the point of view of education, college graduates displayed lower rates of PTSD symptoms than high school diploma holders – 11.1% vs. 18.3%. And when it came to earnings, people with incomes in the range of $50,000 to $74,999 were affected much less than those, whose earnings were below the $25,000 mark, 11.3% vs. 19.8%.
Coming to the symptoms themselves, most people reported suffering from any or all of the following – hyper-vigilance, nightmares, and emotional reactions to anything that brought back memories of the tragedy.
Speaking about the findings of the study, New York City Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Frieden said, “These findings confirm that the experience of 9/11 had lasting consequences for many of those affected by it.”
The study assumes tremendous significance because it is the first one to assess how much of an impact 9/11 had had, on residents living near the scene of the tragedy. It has been published in the Journal of Traumatic Stress.
PTSD is a mental condition, primary an anxiety disorder that has as its trigger, usually instances of trauma arising out of exposure to situations of extreme fear, horror and other such negative emotions.
A person with PTSD could be easily angered and irritable and also face difficulties in sleeping. Other symptoms include inability to concentrate, high levels of alertness, nightmares and flashbacks of the primary source of trauma.
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