Prevalence of Mild and Severe Cognitive Impairment in World Trade Center Exposed Fire Department of the City of New York (FDNY) and General Emergency Responders

Background: The emergency personnel who responded to the World Trade Center (WTC) attacks endured severe occupational exposures, yet the prevalence of cognitive impairment remains unknown among WTC-exposed-FDNY-responders. The present study screened for mild and severe cognitive impairment in WTC-exposed FDNY responders using objective tests, compared prevalence rates to a cohort of non-FDNY WTC-exposed responders, and descriptively to meta-analytic estimates of MCI from global, community, and clinical populations.

Methods: A sample of WTC-exposed-FDNY responders (n = 343) was recruited to complete an extensive battery of cognitive, psychological, and physical tests. The prevalences of domain-specific impairments were estimated based on the results of norm-referenced tests, and the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), Jak/Bondi criteria, Petersen criteria, and the National Institute on Aging and Alzheimer's Association (NIA-AA) criteria were used to diagnose MCI. NIA-AA criteria were also used to diagnose severe cognitive impairment. Generalized linear models and propensity score matching were used to compare prevalence estimates of cognitive impairment to a large sample of WTC-exposed-non-FDNY responders from the General Responder Cohort (GRC; n = 7102) who completed the MoCA during a similar time frame.

Result: Among FDNY responders under 65 years, the unadjusted prevalence of MCI varied from 52.57% to 60.32% depending on the operational definition of MCI, apart from using a conservative cut-off applied to MoCA total scores (18 < MoCA < 23), which yielded a markedly lower crude prevalence (24.31%) compared to alternative criteria. Using propensity score matching, the prevalence of MCI was significantly higher among WTC-exposed FDNY responders, compared to WTC-exposed GRC responders (adjusted RR = 1.13 (CI 95% = 1.07-1.20, p < 0.001), and descriptively higher than meta-analytic estimates from different global, community, and clinical populations. Following NIA-AA diagnostic guidelines, 4.96% of WTC-exposed-FDNY-responders met the criteria for severe impairments (95% CI = 2.91-7.82), a prevalence that remained largely unchanged after excluding responders over the age of 65 years.

Discussion: There is a high prevalence of mild and severe cognitive impairment among WTC-responders, highlighting the putative role of occupational, environmental, and disaster-related exposures in the etiology of accelerated cognitive decline.