The health impacts of 9/11 have been far reaching, with new data showing that the first firefighters on the scene that day have higher levels of CVD than colleagues who attended later.

The finding comes from 16 years of follow-up data of nearly 10,000 male members of the Fire Department of the City of New York (average age 40), who were involved in responding to the disaster in 2001 and in the 10-month clean-up of the site.

It shows that the very first responders have a 44% higher incidence of serious CVD outcomes than those who first arrived on site the next day or later.

Age-adjusted incidence rates for a composite of CVD death, stroke, MI, unstable angina, coronary artery surgery or angioplasty were 5.6 per 1000 person-years in those firefighters who arrived in the morning.