BMJ  2005;330 (25 June), doi:10.1136/bmj.330.7506.0

Staying in was safer than evacuation in a chemical incident

Residents who took shelter in their houses had fewer adverse health consequences after a chemical incident in a plastics factory in southwest England than those who were evacuated. Kinra and colleagues (p 1471) used a questionnaire to explore health outcomes in 1096 residents—299 who were evacuated and 797 who stayed. The mean number of adverse symptoms and the proportion of residents who had at least four symptoms (cases) were higher in evacuated people than in those who stayed in their houses (symptom score 1.9, 19.7% cases v score 1.0, 9.5% cases, respectively; P < 0.001).

Credit: TORQUAY HERALD EXPRESS


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Evacuation decisions in a chemical air pollution incident: cross sectional survey
S Kinra, G Lewendon, R Nelder, N Herriott, R Mohan, M Hort, S Harrison, and V Murray
BMJ 2005 330: 1471. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

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