Children exposed to 9/11 to receive major long-term health study

A long-term health study of people who were children in lower Manhattan at the time of the September 11 attacks has been funded by United States health authorities, twenty-five years after the event.

The study will follow participants who were living, attending school or present in the affected area in 2001 and who were exposed to dust and smoke in the weeks that followed. Researchers will look at respiratory illness, cardiovascular outcomes and cancer incidence, and at mental health.

Why now

Existing monitoring programmes were built mainly around responders and adult residents. Those exposed as children are only now reaching the ages at which several of the outcomes of interest typically appear, which is why researchers argue this cohort must be tracked separately rather than folded into adult data.

Enrolment details and the participating institutions are expected to be published in the coming weeks.

Compiled from United States federal health agency announcements and from Associated Press reporting. Verification cut-off 22:30 BST on 10 September 2026.