This Article  • Full text  • PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Citation map  • Citing articles on HighWire  • Citing articles on ISI (14)  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in JAMA  Topic Collections  • Caring for the Uninsured and Underinsured  • Health Policy  • Law and Medicine  • Alert me on articles by topic

Sara Rosenbaum, JD

JAMA. 2006;295:437-440.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

In a season that experienced an onslaught of major hurricanes, Hurricane Katrina nonetheless stands apart as a seminal social event. Katrina did not merely lay waste to a geographic region; it also exposed every public policy failure essential to community and population health. Nicholas Lemann wrote that, "after the levees broke, we watched every single system associated with the life of a city fail: the electric grid, the water system, the sewer system, the transportation system, the telephone system, the police force, the fire department, the hospitals, even the system for disposing of corpses."¹ The US Department of Homeland Security reported that as of September 15, 2005, 90 000 square miles had been declared disaster areas, and over 122 000 persons were housed in shelters throughout the nation.² Three months later, in December 2005, more than a million people are still reported to be homeless.³

Hurricane Katrina exposed a . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Viewing National Health Care Policy in the Context of Katrina

Author Affiliation: Department of Health Policy, George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services, Washington, DC.

THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES

Should a Reformed System Be Prepared for Public Health Emergencies, and What Does that Mean Anyway?
Katz and Levi
J Law Med Ethics 2008;36:716-721.
 

Access To Care Among Displaced Mississippi Residents In FEMA Travel Trailer Parks Two Years After Katrina
Shehab et al.
Health Aff (Millwood) 2008;27:w416-w429.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT  

The Long Road Home: Rebuilding Public Inpatient Psychiatric Services in Post-Katrina New Orleans
Calderon-Abbo
Psychiatr. Serv. 2008;59:304-309.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT  

Disruption of Existing Mental Health Treatments and Failure to Initiate New Treatment After Hurricane Katrina
Wang et al.
Am. J. Psychiatry 2008;165:34-41.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT  

Exposure to Hurricane-Related Stressors and Mental Illness After Hurricane Katrina
Galea et al.
Arch Gen Psychiatry 2007;64:1427-1434.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT  

Mental Health Service Use Among Hurricane Katrina Survivors in the Eight Months After the Disaster
Wang et al.
Psychiatr. Serv. 2007;58:1403-1411.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT  

Swept Away: Use of General Medical and Mental Health Services Among Veterans Displaced By Hurricane Katrina
Druss et al.
Am. J. Psychiatry 2007;164:154-156.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT  

Federal health policy response to Hurricane Katrina: what it was and what it could have been.
Lambrew and Shalala
JAMA 2006;296:1394-1397.
FULL TEXT