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>Health conditions associated with the greater Grand Forks 1997 flood disaster: Pre- to post-flood seasonal and trend analysis with age and gender effects.
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Health conditions associated with the greater Grand Forks 1997 flood disaster: Pre- to post-flood seasonal and trend analysis with age and gender effects.
Natural disasters, such as floods, hurricanes, and earthquakes, are often considered uncontrollable environmental events and have been linked with mild to severe physical and psychological effects. By all accounts, natural disasters are traumatic events to those experiencing them and often have widespread and devastating impacts on health and stability. The degree that people are affected by a natural disaster has been difficult to capture.; Massive flooding that occurred in Grand Forks, North Dakota, and East Grand Forks, Minnesota (spring 1997), caused evacuation of almost the entire population of both communities. Because a single health care system served both cities, a rare opportunity existed to study the health effects of flooding on an entire population. Clinic and hospital discharge records were analyzed in terms of the primary reason for accessing health care and for up to four co-morbid conditions present at the time of access. The International Classification of Disease, 9th Revision-Clinical Modification was used to describe the health effects.; In summary, both the hospital (5.94%) and the clinic (13.8%) facilities experienced increases in visits by residents of the two flood communities. Visits made to both facilities generally decreased for the young and increased for those over 40 post-flood. Younger patients had significantly fewer visits for respiratory ailments and musculoskeletal conditions and more visits related to mental illness. Older patients had more visits for diseases and conditions related to respiratory, musculoskeletal, and mental illness post-flood as compared to pre-flood.; Overall, females had an increased number of clinic visits post-flood (p .001), and males, while not significant (p = .112), had more hospital visits post-flood as compared to pre-flood. Females had significantly more visits post-flood for (a) respiratory ailments, (b) musculoskeletal conditions related to disc and back, joints, and sprains and strains, and (c) mental illness including anxiety, ADHD, and neuroses. Visits for pregnancy related complications significantly increased post-flood in both the clinic and hospital. Males were found to have significantly more visits for (a) respiratory infections, (b) circulatory diseases including ischemic heart disease, hypertension, and conductive heart disease, and (c) drug and alcohol problems post-flood as compared to pre-flood.
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