Public Health Plays Important Role in Aftermath of Terror.
With a nine-fold increase in deaths worldwide due to terrorism between 2000 and 2014, more work is needed to prepare communities to deal with such attacks and to reduce the harm done by exposure to violence, a commentary co-authored by a School of Public Heath researcher says.
In an editorial in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine, Jaimie Gradus, an assistant professor of epidemiology and of psychiatry at the School of Medicine, who also is a researcher at the VA National Center for PTSD, and colleagues reviewed an article led by Norwegian researchers that examined the public health consequences of the July 2011 terrorist attack in Norway.
They said the research to date on the mental and physical health consequences of terrorist-related events “indicates that public health has a major role in designing intervention and prevention efforts that mitigate the health effects of these events on a community level.”
Gradus and colleagues suggested several steps that communities can take to mitigate the impact of terror events, including “creating and preparing community-based support and intervention systems” before incidents occur, and disseminating information about the range of physical and emotional responses to such exposures and where to seek assistance for them. They also suggested that communities should hold town meetings, where residents can ask questions of health experts.
Individuals with limited social supports will need community support systems, such as religious institutions and accessible mental health services, they added.
“Importantly, strategies to reduce the mental and physical health impact of terrorist attacks should consider cultural, ethnic, and environmental factors to maximize effectiveness,” they said.
The Norway article found that hospitalizations for schizophrenia/psychosis, suicides, and heart attacks rose during the first four weeks after the 2011 terrorist attack. It did not examine stress-related mental health disorders such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Co-authors on the editorial were Brian Marx and Denise Sloan of the VA National Center for PTSD.