Author
Listed:
- Caleb D. Ayers
(World Trade Center Health Registry, Center for Population Health Data Science, New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Long Island City, NY 11101, USA)
- Rebecca D. Kehm
(World Trade Center Health Registry, Center for Population Health Data Science, New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Long Island City, NY 11101, USA
Department of Epidemiology, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, NY 10032, USA)
- James E. Cone
(World Trade Center Health Registry, Center for Population Health Data Science, New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Long Island City, NY 11101, USA)
- Jiehui Li
(World Trade Center Health Registry, Center for Population Health Data Science, New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Long Island City, NY 11101, USA)
Abstract
The 11 September 2001 World Trade Center (WTC) rescue and recovery workers (RRWs) included first responders (FDNY and NYPD), volunteers, and other workers. Volunteers were often more vulnerable than first responders to adverse health outcomes resulting from the exposure. It is not yet known whether there are differences in WTC Health Program (WTCHP) utilization by worker type. This is a cross-sectional study of 20,012 WTCHP-eligible RRWs to examine whether worker type was associated with WTCHP utilization based on self-reported data from four WTC Health Registry follow-up surveys (2006–2021), using multivariable log-binomial regression adjusted for sociodemographic factors and comorbidities. We also examined factors associated with WTCHP utilization by worker type. Overall, 9584 RRWs (47.9%) reported receiving WTCHP services, but only 22.5% of volunteers reported WTCHP utilization. After adjustment, first responders and other workers were, respectively, 2.73 (95% CI = 2.56, 2.92) and 1.69 (95% CI = 1.58, 1.80) times more likely to utilize WTCHP service than volunteers. Sociodemographic factors and comorbidities were consistently associated with WTCHP utilization across worker types, except for race/ethnicity. Among those eligible, the volunteer group reported the lowest utilization of WTCHP among worker types, suggesting that WTC volunteers should be a priority group for outreach regarding access and utilization of WTCHP.
Suggested Citation
Caleb D. Ayers & Rebecca D. Kehm & James E. Cone & Jiehui Li, 2025.
"Disparities in Utilization of the World Trade Center Health Program Among World Trade Center Rescue and Recovery Workers and Volunteers,"
IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 22(4), pages 1-11, April.
Handle:
RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:22:y:2025:i:4:p:643-:d:1638083
Download full text from publisher
Corrections
All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:22:y:2025:i:4:p:643-:d:1638083. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.
If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.
We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .
If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .
Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through
the various RePEc services.