Does raising the terrorism alert level cause undue stress?

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s color-coded system for warning the public of the risk of a terrorist attack does not appear to cause undue stress among law enforcement officers, according to a study by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.

A review of calls to New Jersey’s Cop 2 Cop crisis intervention hotline found no statistically significant increase in calls with periods of increased alert. The study is published in the March 18, 2008 issue of the International Journal of Emergency Mental Health and is among the first to examine the psychological impact of the alert system on first responders.

“With regard to New Jersey law enforcement, we did not find any evidence to support the concern that elevating the alert status places undue stress on those receiving the alert,” said one of the study’s authors, George S. Everly, Jr., PhD, a psychologist with the Bloomberg School’s Center for Public Health Preparedness. “We believe these findings are an important first step in addressing concerns that policy makers may have for using such an alert system. In order to more fully address this issue, our study needs to be replicated with groups other than law enforcement, especially the civilian population.”

The Cop 2 Cop crisis hotline was established by the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey to provide counseling to police officers in the state. New Jersey officers were selected for the study as a group because of their experiences with the 2001 terrorist attacks. The research team analyzed call data from September 9, 2002, to January 30, 2004. During that time, the Homeland Security national alert level was raised five times from yellow (elevated) to orange (high).

According to the study, the hotline received 4,145 initial calls during the study period. Of these, 1,062 occurred during the alert periods. Analysis showed a substantial increase in calls to the Cop 2 Cop hotline around the second anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. However, the researchers did not detect a pattern of increased calls corresponding to an elevation in the alert level compared with the week preceding the alert period.

Source: Johns Hopkins University

Related stories:

Beyond 3G, communications services of the future
(PhysOrg.com) -- Europe's telecommunications industry became the world leader in the 1990s. Now European researchers are working to maintain that lead by developing an innovative services platform for 'Beyond 3G' communications.
MIT's smart pillbox targets TB
Tuberculosis has long been eradicated from the world's industrialized nations but continues to take a terrible toll in a few poor, rural regions of Asia and Africa. Every year, 10 million new cases are diagnosed and two million people die of the disease.
Computer analysis of 911 calls from Calif. wildfires offers potential early warning system
When confronted with emergencies or natural disasters, such as the wildfires that raged through San Diego and Los Angeles counties last October or the tornadoes that hit the southern U.S. last week, residents often dial 9-1-1 as their first course of action.
NIST measures performance of auto crash warning systems
Engineers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology have developed and tested a laser-based ranging system to assess the performance of automobile collision warning systems.
Graduate students find no match in evening cell phone use spike and crash data
It's conventional wisdom that talking on cell phones while driving is risky business, but two University of California, Berkeley, graduate student economists report that a spike in cell phone use in recent years and on weekday evenings is not matched by an increase in fatal or non-fatal car crashes from 2002-2005.
'Smart' traffic boxes could help monitor roads, save money
Ohio State University engineers are working to make the traffic control boxes that stand beside major freeways smarter.
Making days longer than 24 hours
People at a research hospital in Boston have been living 24-hour, 39-minute days. They were part of an experiment to show that the 24-hour human sleep-wake cycle can be adapted to other biological rhythms like the longer days on Mars.
Web Alarms, Mobile Alerts Aim to Make You Safer
From emergency message networks that can reach 100,000 people within minutes to alarm systems that allow you to monitor your home over the Web, new technologies are aiming to make U.S. consumers feel safer.

News discussion:

Medicine & Health news