ED Visits by Older Residents Affected by Hurricane Katrina Increased by 21% in Year After Storm

New Orleans-area residents ages 65 and older who were affected by Hurricane Katrina had an illness rate that was four times greater than other U.S. residents in that age range one year after the 2005 storm, according to a study published in the January issue of the American Journal of Managed Care, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reports.

For the study, researchers at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health examined 20,612 residents of Orleans, Jefferson, St. Tammany and Plaquemines parishes who were enrolled in Peoples Health, a managed care organization, and were ages 65 and older. The study is not representative of the area population, as less than 15% of the population has managed care coverage, according to Charles Cefalu, chief of the geriatric medicine section at LSU Health Sciences Center. Cefalu said, "The results are probably worse because of the population we have that doesn't have access to health care."

Researchers found that the rate of illness in New Orleans-area residents increased by 12.6% in the year following Hurricane Katrina, compared with an increase of 3.4% nationwide in the same age group. Researchers found that emergency department visits among New Orleans residents one month after Hurricane Katrina was 100% higher than the previous year. The number of ED visits for the rest of the year following the storm was 21% higher than the previous year (Pope, New Orleans Times-Picayune, 1/22).

The study is available online.