Working with Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health, a group of students from LSU Health Sciences Center in New Orleans' School of Public Health found a host of under or untreated medical and mental health conditions affecting adults and children living in FEMA-subsidized housing units (trailers and hotel rooms) in Louisiana.
Fifty-eight percent of the respondents would like to return to their former neighborhoods, 30% would like to relocate elsewhere (including a number of respondents interested in purchasing their FEMA-subsidized travel trailers and then moving them elsewhere), and 11% were still unsure about their future plans.
Study participant LSUHSC public health student Toni Marie Jones said, "I didn't expect to walk the talk so soon.
Not only is such information important to health care providers, but also to preparedness planners and policymakers.
Parents report high rates of asthma, behavioral problems, and learning disabilities.
A number of parents reported that they had a child who was either hospitalized or required repeated visits to the emergency room for acute asthmatic episodes because they could not get their child's asthmatic medications.
Over half of the female care givers scored at levels consistent with clinically-diagnosed psychiatric problems, such as depression or anxiety disorders.
Children whose parents scored very low on this mental health score were two and a half times as likely to have experienced emotional or behavioral problems.
One parent, whose 6-year old was on an 18- month waiting list for psychiatric care, was told that she still needed a referral from her primary care physician even though he had relocated to Puerto Rico after the hurricane.
Read more from this post.
