A study led by MUSC researchers found long-term mental health issues following the Flint water crisis MUSC

The study, led by researchers at the Medical University of South Carolina, found a “huge unmet mental health need” in Flint, Michigan, five years after the water crisis. Dean Kilpatrick, Ph.D., the study’s principal investigator, said last year’s estimates of PTSD and depression in Flint were higher than estimates in Michigan, the U.S., and more than 20 countries included in the international study. PTSD and depression.

A research article on Flint appears in JAMA Network Open, a peer-reviewed, open-access journal published by the American Medical Association. The findings in this article are very serious. One in five Flint residents surveyed, 18 and older, suffered from major depression in the past year. One in four had PTSD. And one in 10 had both.

“If you still have PTSD or depression five years after something happened, that’s very evidence that you haven’t gotten the right treatment or that you still need more treatment,” said Kilpatrick, a distinguished university professor in the department of psychiatry and behavior. Sciences.

Or any treatment, period. Less than 35% of people surveyed reported receiving mental health services related to water problems.

The team studying the long-term effects of that crisis included scientists from MUSC’s departments of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Microbiology and Immunology, and Public Health Sciences, along with researchers from Boston University and Dartmouth University.

They surveyed about 1,970 people in Flint The water crisis that started in 2014 The city switched its water supply from Lake Huron and the Detroit River to the Flint River and failed to add anti-corruption to the water. This allowed lead and iron from old pipes to enter the water supply.

Immediately, people started complaining that the water smelled, tasted and looked bad, but officials told the public that the water was safe to drink for more than a year. It wasn’t.

Doctors have found high levels of lead in children, which damages the central and central nervous systems, causes learning disabilities, impairs growth, impairs hearing and affects the formation and functioning of blood cells. Environmental Protection Agency.

The researchers confirmed that the polluted water caused psychological damage. People worry about the impact on their health and the health of their family and friends. And they weren’t sure how much lead they might be exposed to.

“I’ve been exposed and I don’t know what the health consequences are, but the thought that they could be bad and long-lasting is enough to freak people out and cause mental and physical stress.” ” Kilpatrick said.

Almost everyone surveyed said they had taken steps to reduce their exposure to contaminated water – about 80% avoided drinking the water – but most were still concerned about health problems, including long-term implications.

Another key cause of concern: people have lost faith in their leaders. “Government officials were reluctant to recognize that they had a massive problem. And they reassured people that the water was safe, which turned out to be basically what many government officials do. They often have a hard time admitting to themselves that they have a big problem on their hands at first,” Kilpatrick said.

“So they try to deny it as long as they can until they face it. And eventually they announce it. But then they tell people, ‘You’re fine, don’t worry,’ and for a long time people have a hard time believing them.”

Studies conducted by other researchers during and shortly after the crisis have found elevated symptoms of PTSD, anxiety, depression, and stress. In the year A pair of smaller surveys in 2018 and 2019 confirmed that mental health issues exist.

But researchers in the MUSC-led study want more data to see how serious the long-term effects are. Therefore, MUSC-based funding from the Office of Crime Victims of the Federal Department of Justice National Mass Violence Victim Information CenterThey plan to assess ongoing psychiatric issues in Flint residents using standardized diagnostic measures. The role NMVVRC played was that the Office of Crime Victims identified a need for better information about large-scale incidents, such as the Flint Water Crisis, that are not mass violence but can cause them. Criminal charges.

They also looked at how previous stressful events affected people’s responses to the Flint water crisis. That includes a life-threatening illness, serious accident, previous accident and/or physical or sexual abuse. Research shows that these factors significantly increase the risk of mental illness.

“Exposure to traumatic events is cumulative over time. So if you’ve had a lot of these very stressful things in the past, that may predispose you to develop PTSD or depression to some new stressor, or if you’ve had these problems in the past,” Kilpatrick said.

Low-income people and people without social support are also more likely to struggle, the study says.

The scientists hope their findings will help guide what happens next for those suffering from Flint. “Here at MUSC, we’re developing a basic research program looking at the effects of cumulative lead exposure, integrating it with other studies that are already underway. However, cumulative lead exposure can affect not only children but also adults in terms of cortical development, especially if lead accumulated in bone begins to move out of the bone and into the rest of the body. At that point it can affect your cortical functioning, possibly leading to early dementia and so on, as well as other health problems,” Kilpatrick said.

“With this Flint study, we’ve got interest in the general direction of combining cumulative lead exposure measurements with studies that look at trauma, that look at your exposure to different things. How do all these things combine to increase your risk of having some mental health disorder, not to mention some cognitive dysfunction or other health problems?”

He said the study findings also make it clear that local, state and federal governments need to work together to provide more mental health services in Flint.

But he said the researchers noticed something positive about the strength of the city of Flint, which has seen a lot of coming together in recent years. “It’s important to note that not everyone has and still doesn’t have PTSD or depression. So that shows the resilience of a lot of people in Flint who, despite all these problems, can get the help they need, maybe from other friends, family, the community.