Nearly 25,000 children who were living or attending school near New York’s World Trade Center when the towers fell on 11 September 2001 are set to be studied for long-term health effects, after the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) moved to establish a research programme more than two decades after the attacks, reports Reuters.
The CDC is seeking researchers to create the World Trade Center Youth Research Coordinating Center and identify a Youth Research Cohort to track people who were 21 years old or younger, or in the womb, and living below 14th Street in Manhattan or anywhere in Brooklyn on and after 9/11.
In a press release, the agency said the study aims to address gaps in knowledge about whether exposure to the toxic cloud and dust released after the collapse of the twin towers increased long-term risks of illnesses including cancer, cardiovascular disease and reproductive health problems.
Thousands of children were exposed to pulverised concrete, glass fibres, asbestos and other pollutants in the days and weeks following the attacks. However, few were included in government-funded follow-up health studies of World Trade Center survivors, which mainly focused on first responders and adults.
Scientists said the lack of data has made it difficult to assess chronic illnesses that may only now be emerging as those children reach their 30s and early 40s.
Congress approved funding for the study in 2022, with oversight from the CDC. The agency has not yet disclosed how many participants it plans to recruit, when it will formally seek research proposals or the total funding available.
A group of similarly aged people who were not exposed to the World Trade Center disaster will also be recruited for comparison. The CDC’s World Trade Center Health Program and the New York City Department of Health’s World Trade Center Health Registry provided services for children in the early years after the attacks.
However, Dr Joan Reibman of NYU Langone Medical Center said many affected children received care from their own paediatricians, unlike many adult survivors who relied on specialised programmes.
Among adult survivors and first responders, researchers have identified dozens of cancers and other health conditions linked to exposure. Evidence on childhood exposure has so far come mainly from smaller studies.
Reibman, founder of the World Trade Center Environmental Health Center, said recruiting participants would require significant community support because many have moved across the United States and may not want to revisit the trauma of that period.
Dr Leigh Wilson, current medical director of the World Trade Center Environmental Health Center, said studying the health outcomes of 9/11-exposed children could help identify preventive measures and resources for future emergencies, including for children affected by conflicts today.
“You have to identify and start studying all exposed populations immediately, whether they’re adults or children,” Reibman said, adding that lessons from the World Trade Center disaster had come too late.
