Mount Sinai - Irving J. Selikoff Center for Occupational and Environmental Medicine

The World Trade Center Worker and Volunteer Medical Screening Program

July, 2002

Program Overview

The World Trade Center Worker and Volunteer Medical Screening Program is a comprehensive medical evaluation program to provide free and confidential medical exams, referrals for medical care, and occupational health education for 8,500 workers and volunteers who provided rescue, recovery, debris removal, and sifting and restoration of vital support services at the WTC and Staten Island Landfill sites. The Program is directed by The Mount Sinai Center for Occupational and Environmental Medicine, in partnership with the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with medical examinations and related services performed by a consortium of occupational medicine providers.

The Program has the following goals:

• To identify individuals who sustained hazardous exposures at or near the WTC site or the Staten Island landfill during rescue, recovery or restoration of essential services activities.
• To provide medical screening examinations to identify workers and volunteers with persistent WTC-related medical conditions.
• To coordinate referral for follow-up medical care for affected individuals.
• To educate exposed workers and volunteers about their exposures and the associated risks to health, and to advise them about benefit and entitlement programs available.
• To establish "baseline" medical status for workers and volunteers exposed at or near the WTC site or the Staten Island landfill. Future comparison with baseline medical examinations will be useful to identify WTC-related conditions that may develop later.

We will also have counselors available to help program participants with questions regarding entitlement programs and other benefits available for people involved in the WTC recovery. Each person examined will receive a confidential written report of his/her examination results. All individual examination results will be kept strictly confidential. No information about any individual will be provided to anyone other than the person examined without his/her written consent.

Participating Partners and Clinic Locations

Medical screening examinations will be provided at the following NY-NJ locations:

Manhattan

• Mount Sinai -Irving J. Selikoff Center for Occupational and Environmental Medicine
• Bellevue/NYU Occupational & Environmental Medicine Clinic

Queens

• Queens College Center for the Biology of Natural Systems

Long Island

• SUNY Stony Brook/L.I. Occupational & Environmental Health Center with various examination sites in Nassau and Suffolk Counties

Westchester

• Mount Sinai -Irving J. Selikoff Center for Occupational and Environmental Medicine / Hudson Valley Division at St. John’s Riverside Hospital

New Jersey (Piscataway)

• UMDNJ Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences Institute

In addition, screening examinations will be offered elsewhere in the U.S. through the Association of Occupational & Environmental Clinics.

Eligibility for Screening

The number of applicants for medical screening examinations may well exceed the 8,500 appointments for which funding is currently available. Temporary eligibility criteria have been established to enable the program to begin scheduling appointments for medical screening examinations. The most heavily exposed individuals will be the first to be scheduled. The temporary criteria are based on the time period, duration and location of WTC on-site activities as indicators of hazardous exposure. These criteria will be periodically reviewed and modified. Thus, an individual who performed WTC or Staten Island landfill rescue/recovery activities and does not meet the initial criteria may become eligible if and when the criteria are broadened.

Note:

Federal and New York State employees and New York City Firefighters are not eligible for examination in this program because the Federal government has funded their medical screening examinations under separate programs.

How to Apply

If you provided WTC site or Staten Island landfill rescue/recovery services, call the WTC Worker and Volunteer Medical Screening hotline at 1 (888) 702-0630 to learn more about receiving a free and confidential medical screening examination. The Hotline receptionist will ask you a series of questions taking about five minutes of your time. If you qualify based on the provisional criteria in effect at the time of your call you will immediately be scheduled for a medical screening examination appointment. If you do not qualify at that time, with your permission your name will be placed on a waiting list for possible scheduling at a future time.

The World Trade Center Worker and Volunteer Medical Screening Program.

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