The author looked at trends in medical journals and other publications - seeing how they treated stories compared to data. He also used his own experience with stories in medicine and the experiences of a friend of his, Dr. Bech.
Interviews were conducted with inmates and politicians.
There arent any references along with this document, but the author presumably researched where dontaions go, conducted interviews with the volunteers that travel to help out on the island, as well as investigating how the rebuild process is going in comparison to the state of the island before the disaster.
The article was based on answers to questions to the FDNY and NYPD, as well as the report filed by the EMTs.