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Call for Health Registry Response The World Trade Center Health Registry is putting out a call to Downtown residents: please respond. According to the city’s Department of Health, which administers the registry, residents have had the lowest response rate to the registry’s follow-up survey that was mailed and e-mailed to enrollees at the end of 2006. To date, only 40 percent of the more than 12,000 adult enrollees have completed and submitted the follow-up health survey, compared with over half of the workers who are enrolled. “The more people who complete and return these surveys, the more we all learn about the long-term health effects of 9/11,” said a DOH spokesperson. With a total of more than 70,000 people enrolled, the health registry is the largest collection of information about the physical and mental health effects from World Trade Center exposures. Catherine McVay Hughes, co-chair of Community Board 1’s WTC Redevelopment Committee, said that by providing space for explanation beyond the multiple choice questions, the follow-up surveys had been an improvement over the first survey issued in 2003. Dr. Lorna Thorpe, DOH Deputy Commissioner for Epidemiology, explained why a higher response rate is important for assessing the health impacts over the long term. “A low response rate would make us concerned that those who responded were systematically different from those who didn’t, giving a skewed perspective of the long-term impact of 9/11. The best way to ensure against this bias is to have a high response rate, which is why it’s so important for all registrants to complete every re-survey.” This spring the DOH will send follow-up health surveys to the parents of the 2,030 enrollees under the age of 18. The Department plans to telephone non-respondents this summer. For information about the registry, go to www.wtcregistry.org or call 212-442-1585.
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