U. nursing prof. to get $75,000

Ronald McDonald wants to help Helaine Greenberg help children. Last week, Ronald McDonald Children's Charities gave Greenberg -- a University Nursing School researcher -- a two-year, $75,000 grant to study the effects of fire on 60 child survivors. The grant is part of a larger $1.6 million federal research program studying the effects of fire on adult survivors that is being conducted by Nursing School professors Ruth McCorkle and Ann Keane. "It is an important topic since house fires as a common, everyday occurence need to be viewed as personal disasters," Greenberg said yesterday. Greenberg added that she became interested in studying how children are affected by house fires while working on the adult study. "[I was] looking at adults and I realized they were extraordinarily stressed even though they did not lose a loved one or had been injured," she said. "I was concerned that reserchers were not paying attention to children." Greenberg said she will be studying the post-traumatic stresses a child experiences after home fires, specifically the changes in children's behavior. In a small preliminary study, Greenberg said she found that children do not sleep as well, are fearful of another fire, and "cling to home more since they are concerned that it won't be there anymore or that people they care about will be harmed in some way." Greenberg said that the Philadelphia Fire Department will provide her with information about home fires that have children survivors. Philadelphia Fire Department Lieutenant William Johnson said "that after 18 plus years in various field companies, it [child fire survivors] is an issue that certainly needs to be addressed." McCorkle said the Philadelphia fire commissioner is a co-investigator in the larger study. Greenberg said that she is "very hopeful that we can generate interventions because there is no organized system for helping people who have been in house fires." In the study, Greenberg said that she will study the differences among children in terms of extent of exposure to fire, displacement from their house, loss of property and life, and demographic variables.

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