Assessment of Inhalation Exposures and Potential Health Risks to the General Population that Resulted from the Collapse of the World Trade Center Towers

In the days following the collapse of the World Trade Center (WTC) towers on September 11, 2001 (9/11), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) initiated numerous air monitoring activities to better understand the ongoing impact of emissions from that disaster. Using these data, EPA conducted an inhalation exposure and human health risk assessment to the general population. This assessment does not address exposures and potential impacts that could have occurred to rescue workers, firefighters, and other site workers, nor does it address exposures that could have occurred in the indoor environment. Contaminants evaluated include particulate matter (PM), metals, polychlorinated biphenyls, dioxins, asbestos, volatile organic compounds, particle-bound polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, silica, and synthetic vitreous fibers (SVFs). This evaluation yielded three principal findings. (1) Persons exposed to extremely high levels of ambient PM and its components, SVFs, and other contaminants during the collapse of the WTC towers, and for several hours afterward, were likely to be at risk for acute and potentially chronic respiratory effects. (2) Available data suggest that contaminant concentrations within and near ground zero (GZ) remained significantly elevated above background levels for a few days after 9/11. Because only limited data on these critical few days were available, exposures and potential health impacts could not be evaluated with certainty for this time period. (3) Except for inhalation exposures that may have occurred on 9/11 and a few days afterward, the ambient air concentration data suggest that persons in the general population were unlikely to suffer short-term or long-term adverse health effects caused by inhalation exposures. While this analysis by EPA evaluated the potential for health impacts based on measured air concentrations, epidemiological studies conducted by organizations other than EPA have attempted to identify actual impacts. Such studies have identified respiratory effects in worker and general populations, and developmental effects in newborns whose mothers were near GZ on 9/11 or shortly thereafter. While researchers are not able to identify specific times and even exactly which contaminants are the cause of these effects, they have nonetheless concluded that exposure to WTC contaminants (and/or maternal stress, in the case of developmental effects) resulted in these effects, and have identified the time period including 9/11 itself and the days and few weeks afterward as a period of most concern based on high concentrations of key pollutants in the air and dust.     

Social Origins of Civil Society: Explaining the Nonprofit Sector Cross-Nationally

Recent research has usefully documented the contribution that nonprofit organizations make to social capital and to the economic and political development it seems to foster. Because of a gross lack of basic comparative data, however, the question of what it is that allows such organizations to develop remains far from settled. This article seeks to remedy this by testing five existing theories of the nonprofit sector against data assembled on eight countries as part of the Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project. The five theories are: (a) government failure/market failure theory; (b) supply-side theory; (c) trust theories; (d) welfare state theory; and (e) interdependence theory. The article finds none of these theories adequate to explain the variations among countries in either the size, the composition, or the financing of the nonprofit sector. On this basis it suggests a new theoretical approach to explaining patterns of nonprofit development among countries—the social origins approach—which focuses on broader social, political, and economic relationships. Using this theory, the article identifies four routes of third-sector development (the liberal, the social democratic, the corporatist, and the statist), each associated with a particular constellation of class relationships and pattern of state-society relations. The article then tests this theory against the eight-country data and finds that it helps make sense of anomalies left unexplained by the prevailing theories.     

INDUSTRY STUDIES AND AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL PERFORMANCE

A nationwide research program on the performance of American industry, sponsored by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, now involves scores of faculty researchers and more than 100 graduate students at several American universities. Ten research centers have been established, and each one is dedicated to the study of a particular industry. An eleventh center is carrying out research on problems that cut across these industries. It is expected that the Sloan Industry Studies program will make useful contributions to the performance of the industries themselves, to policymaking at all levels of government, and to the development of interdisciplinary research communities within the universities.     

Vulnerable infants program of Rhode Island: promoting permanency for substance-exposed infants

The Vulnerable Infants Program of Rhode Island is a care coordination program to promote permanency for substance-exposed infants by addressing parental needs and increasing collaboration among social service agencies. Over the first four years of the program, there was a decrease in time spent in the newborn nursery beyond medical necessity and identification of permanent placements by 12 months for 84% of infants, with the majority of infants (78%) placed with biological parents or relatives.     

Getting the story straight: evaluating the test-retest reliability of a university health history questionnaire.

This study was designed to establish the reliability of a health history questionnaire used as a screening tool for incoming university students. The authors used a test-retest design, with a test interval of 6 months, on a sample of medical and nursing students. The analysis focused on overall reliability of the questionnaire and reproducibility of specific items, based on question format. Questionnaire items of specific interest were those with dichotomous yes/no response options versus open-ended format questions, those using the words frequently or recently, or those that asked multiple questions. Demographic characteristics of the subjects were considered in the evaluation of reliability. Overall reliability of the questionnaire (93.6%) was above the anticipated level of 90%, and subject sex or program of study did not show any significant differences in reproducibility of responses. Although wording of questions did not affect item reliability, dichotomous format questions demonstrated a higher degree of reliability (96.4%) than the overall reliability of the questionnaire. Recommendations for enhancing the reliability of the questionnaire are based on item analysis and information gathered from interviews with subjects.     

Linking collegiate service‐learning to future volunteerism: Implications for nonprofit organizations

One of the biggest challenges facing nonprofits is attracting and retaining volunteers to help deliver their programs. One way that colleges and universities are attempting to educate students on the importance of community issues and to graduate “good citizens” is through service‐learning (S‐L) programs. Although many scholars argue that collegiate S‐L programs will increase the extent to which students volunteer following graduation (for example, Astin, Sax, and Avalos, 1999; Misa, Anderson, and Yamamura, 2005), more empirical research has been called for to examine this relationship. This article proposes three predictors of future volunteerism for alumni of a collegiate S‐L experience: the amount of personal development experienced during the S‐L project, the perceived value of the S‐L project to the community organization, and the level of volunteerism prior to participation in an S‐L project. Results showed significant effects of all the proposed predictors on postgraduation volunteering. Our findings have implications for nonprofit managers charged with maintaining a sufficient level of volunteers to provide their community services as well as individuals who are responsible for organizing S‐L programs. These managerial implications and directions for future S‐L research are discussed.