# Impacts of the 2017 Hurricanes on Emergency Department Admissions and Outcomes in St. Thomas, USVI

> **NIH NIH R21** · UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA · 2020 · $189,801

## Abstract

Project Summary/Abstract
 The USVI was hit by two successive, Category 5 hurricanes in September 2017: Hurricanes Irma
and Maria. The storms caused massive damage on the islands, including partial destruction of the
Schneider Regional Medical Center (SRMC), the only hospital on St. Thomas, with a reduction in available
beds from 169 to <40, destruction of its Cancer Center and heart catheterization laboratories and reduced
respiratory support, CT, and MRI capabilities. Provision of medical services has been further hampered by
pre- and post-hurricane related departures of physicians and other medical personnel. Persons with the
most serious conditions continue to be sent by air ambulance to hospitals in the continental United States,
with others discharged back to the community to collapsed primary care, public health, and social networks.
There was a perception on the part of physicians remaining on the island that mortality rates were up,
particularly among poor, elderly patients with chronic conditions: in the words of one physician, “they're just
giving up and dying.”
 The current proposal seeks to provide documentation and increase understanding of the short and
long term health risks and impacts of the 2017 hurricanes, focusing on the SRMC Emergency Department
as the primary access point for medical care on St. Thomas post-hurricane. Studies will assess acute
hurricane-related medical conditions and the exacerbation of chronic diseases in the setting of a) severely
disrupted health care services; b) individual patient factors; and c) a collapse of culturally-relevant social
support networks, particularly for aging patients. Data will provide a basis for acute interventions as well as
long-term disaster management planning to promote resilience, and will feed into subsequent modeling
efforts focused on aspects unique to the Afro-Caribbean population of St. Thomas, USVI. Specific Aims
include:
Aim1: Characterize the differences in medical (diagnosis, co-morbidities, presence/absence of chronic
disease, mortality) and demographic factors (age, gender, race/ethnicity, SES, payer status) for periods pre-
and post-hurricanes, and by disposition (air ambulance transfer; hospital admission, discharge back to
community).
Aim 2: Follow 300 post-disaster ED patients ages 55+ with chronic medical diseases who were discharged
back to the community at two time epochs (12 and 24 months) to characterize their demographic (age,
gender, race/ethnicity); health care utilization (primary care visits); medical (co-morbidities); behavioral
(medical adherence, coping style, depression, self-reported resilience) and social network status and
identify the association of these factors with outcome (death, readmission to ED or hospital; functional
status).

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9976593
- **Project number:** 5R21MD013762-02
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA
- **Principal Investigator:** John Glenn Morris
- **Activity code:** R21 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $189,801
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2019-07-11 → 2022-02-28

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9976593

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9976593, Impacts of the 2017 Hurricanes on Emergency Department Admissions and Outcomes in St. Thomas, USVI (5R21MD013762-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-22 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9976593. Licensed CC0.

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