Artigo Acesso aberto Revisado por pares

Epidemiologic Assessment of the Impact of Four Hurricanes—Florida, 2004

2005; American Medical Association; Volume: 294; Issue: 12 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1001/jama.294.12.1484

ISSN

1538-3598

Tópico(s)

Disaster Management and Resilience

Resumo

Florida experienced four major hurricanes: Charley and Frances (both Category (4) and Ivan and Jeanne (both Category 3).*An estimated 20% of homes throughout Florida were damaged by these hurricanes, 1 and 124 persons died. 2 In October 2004, the Florida Department of Health (FDOH) added 30 questions to the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) survey to assess the impact of the hurricanes on state residents.This report summarizes the results of that survey, which indicated that 48.7% of Florida residents had no evacuation plan before any of the hurricanes, portable generators were used in 17.5% of homes after electric power outages, and residents of counties not in the direct paths † of the four hurricanes had consequences similar to those who lived in the direct paths of the hurricanes (e.g., physical injuries, barriers to medical treatment, and loss of work days).Public health officials should consider the needs of residents both in and not in the direct paths of hurricanes in their preparedness planning.BRFSS is a state-based, random-digitdialed telephone survey of the noninstitutionalized U.S. population aged Ն18 years. 3During November-December 2004, interviews were conducted with 1,706 Florida residents.Among the participants, 919 (53.9%) lived in the 41 counties in the direct path of at least one of the four hurricanes, and 787 (46.1%) lived in the 26 counties not in the direct paths of the hurricanes; participants represented all 67 counties in Florida.Chi-square tests were used to examine differences in

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