ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
As the Atlantic hurricane season ramps up, a new study shows that the storm's effects on health can last for years after a hurricane passes. NPR's Alejandra Borunda explains what scientists are learning.
ALEJANDRA BORUNDA, BYLINE: Cornell University doctor and researcher Arnab Ghosh was working in New York City in 2012 when Hurricane Sandy hit.
ARNAB GHOSH: I was a resident at Bellevue Hospital, which is one of the county hospitals here. We got flooded that night.
BORUNDA: The storm affected the hospital's patients that day.
GHOSH: I remember evacuating people, climbing up and down the stairs with them.
BORUNDA: But Ghosh soon realized that the disaster also affected his patients' health long after the floodwaters retreated. He had about 150 patients. After the storm?
GHOSH: Most of them were gone. And I couldn't find them.
BORUNDA: Many probably left the area. But weeks and months later, he also saw some who stayed.
GHOSH: The ones that did, they were sicker. They were sicker in ways that I didn't imagine. Their medical problems are more pronounced.
BORUNDA: Worse diabetes, worse kidney disease, worse heart issues. Ghosh figured out the storm caused people to miss routine care or disrupted their lives in ways that deteriorated their health. It was clear to him that...
GHOSH: The effects of these disasters echo through time.
BORUNDA: He and his colleagues just published a study in the journal Frontiers of Public Health. It looked at Medicare patients in the region hit by Hurricane Sandy. It found that those in flood zones were about 9% more likely to die early for a full five years after the storm compared to patients farther from the flood. Naresh Kumar is an environmental health expert at the University of Miami. He has looked at health outcomes after major disasters like hurricanes Maria and Irma.
NARESH KUMAR: To me, there is not a single disease in the world that's not impacted by hurricanes.
BORUNDA: Take respiratory problems like asthma. If homes flood and people can't get them cleaned up fast, they may develop mold.
KUMAR: The sprouting will be so intense, you get sensitized to mold. And you're done for the rest of your life.
BORUNDA: That mold could spur a person to develop asthma weeks or months later. That asthma would've been influenced by the hurricane, even if the patient didn't make that direct connection. Sue Anne Bell is a nurse scientist at the University of Michigan. She has worked on the front lines of many disasters running emergency medical care after a storm or wildfire.
SUE ANNE BELL: When it comes to health care readiness or disaster preparedness and response, we are really reactive.
BORUNDA: That helps in the short term.
BELL: So we react in the immediate period. We set up field hospitals, we provide immediate care and then leave communities to recover over time.
BORUNDA: But she says what the studies and others like it show is that it's not enough.
BELL: And what happens in that immediate period is really, like, just like a Band-Aid. And Band-Aids don't stick.
BORUNDA: Bell says FEMA support for health care immediately after disasters can help people stay healthy. But the goal, she says, should be to develop programs that provide health support long after the disasters pass.
Alejandra Borunda, NPR News.
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