First Responder Safety and Well-being Amid the Hurricane Helene Response

Emergency first responders are at significant risk for injury, illness, and death during disaster response and recovery operations, particularly with the growing frequency and severity of disaster events such as Hurricane Helene that impacted Western North Carolina in the Fall of 2024. This disaster continues to draw first responders from different areas of the state and regionally, presenting a unique opportunity to assess environmental hazards’ impact on first responders. The National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences’ (NIEHS) Disaster Research Response Program’s (DR2) crosscutting strategy to address the consequences of disasters notes that critical opportunities like this are often missed to better understand physical and mental health impacts of these events. It is clear that we must determine if first responders are able to recognize and be fully prepared for the unique hazards they may encounter. An important gap exists in our understanding of current and emerging safety, health, and psychosocial hazards placing first responders at risk, particularly as they occur in areas where the complexity of response is increased (e.g., landslide risk). A critical need exists to study first responders who have recently participated in response and recovery operations to best determine hazards and how personal, organizational, and other factors of the job place them at risk. The objective of this project is to better identify the range of environmental hazards encountered by first responders during response and recovery operations, and how these hazards impact perception of risk, particularly psychosocial hazards, and then identify key areas to improve training for responder preparedness. The proposed study is innovative due to: (1) the use of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health's Burden, Needs, and Impact method, a well-validated tool that aids identification of environmental impacts and research priorities; (2) a Total Worker Health® (TWH) approach to assess environmental factors impacting responder well-being; and (3) the extraordinary opportunity to aid first responders per the time sensitive nature of the event. In Aim 1, we will conduct one-on-one interviews and focus groups with a variety of first responders (e.g., firefighters, EMS, law enforcement) to identify the current and emerging personal hazards encountered in the response which increase their risk of injury, illness, and mental distress. In Aim2, we will apply the TWH framework to inform responder preparedness through identification of broader workplace and organizational factors impacting responder safety, health, and well-being. In Aim 3, we utilize a participatory approach working with first responders to develop training recommendations to better protect their safety, health, and well-being. The expected outputs and outcomes of this project will inform the NIEHS DR2 goal of “identifying both immediate and long-term potential physical and mental health effects of disaster events” utilizing insights obtained directly from first responders actively engaged in the Hurricane Helene response. Project Number: 1R21ES037935-01 | Fiscal Year: 2025 | NIH Institute/Center: National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) | Principal Investigator: JOHN STALEY | Institution: UNIV OF NORTH CAROLINA CHAPEL HILL, CHAPEL HILL, NC | Award Amount: $413,295 | Activity Code: R21 | Study Section: Special Emphasis Panel[ZES1 MGE-S (TS)] View on NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/11239285