A Longitudinal Study of the Bidirectional Relationship Between Social Support and Posttraumatic Stress Following a Natural Disaster.

There is ample evidence that social support is protective against posttraumatic stress (PTS) symptoms through social causation processes. It is also likely that PTS is associated with decreased social support through social selection processes. Few studies, however, have examined the longitudinal and bidirectional associations between social support and PTS in a postdisaster context, and whether such associations vary by type of support (e.g., emotional, informational, or tangible). We examined these relationships using Galveston Bay Recovery Study data. Participants (N = 658) were interviewed 2-6 months (W1), 5-9 months (W2), and 14-19 months (W3) after Hurricane Ike in 2008. Longitudinal relationships between each support type and PTS were examined in cross-lagged models. W1 emotional support was negatively associated with W2 PTS (Estimate = -.13, p = .007), consistent with social causation. W1 PTS was negatively associated with W2 emotional support (Estimate = -.14, p = .019), consistent with social selection. In contrast, pathways were nonsignificant at subsequent waves and for informational and tangible support. Results suggested that postdisaster social causation and selection were limited to emotional support and diminish over time. Based on these findings, postdisaster services should emphasize restoring supportive social connections to minimize the psychiatric consequences of disaster, especially among those with prior evidence of distress.

Incorporating the sampling design in weighting adjustments for panel attrition.

We review weighting adjustment methods for panel attrition and suggest approaches for incorporating design variables, such as strata, clusters, and baseline sample weights. Design information can typically be included in attrition analysis using multilevel models or decision tree methods such as the chi-square automatic interaction detection algorithm. We use simulation to show that these weighting approaches can effectively reduce bias in the survey estimates that would occur from omitting the effect of design factors on attrition while keeping the resulted weights stable. We provide a step-by-step illustration on creating weighting adjustments for panel attrition in the Galveston Bay Recovery Study, a survey of residents in a community following a disaster, and provide suggestions to analysts in decision-making about weighting approaches.

Frequencies and predictors of barriers to mental health service use: a longitudinal study of Hurricane Ike survivors.

BACKGROUND: The majority of disaster survivors suffering from psychological symptoms do not receive mental health services. Research on barriers to service use among disaster survivors is limited by a lack of longitudinal studies of representative samples and investigations of predictors of barriers. The purpose of this study was to address these limitations through analysis of a three-wave population-based study of Hurricane Ike survivors (N = 658). METHODS: Frequencies of preference, outcome expectancy, resource, and stigma barriers among participants with unmet mental health needs were documented and logistic regression using a generalized estimating equations approach explored predisposing (e.g., age), illness-related (e.g., posttraumatic stress) and enabling (e.g., insurance coverage) factors as predictors of each type of barrier. RESULTS: Preference barriers were most frequently cited at each wave, whereas stigma barriers were least frequently cited. Older age and higher emotional support predicted preference barriers; being a parent of a child under 18-years old at the time of the hurricane, higher generalized anxiety, and lack of insurance predicted resource barriers; and higher posttraumatic stress predicted stigma barriers. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that postdisaster practices targeting subpopulations most likely to have barriers to service use may be indicated.

Prevalence, risk, and correlates of posttraumatic stress disorder across ethnic and racial minority groups in the United States.

OBJECTIVES: We assess whether posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) varies in prevalence, diagnostic criteria endorsement, and type and frequency of potentially traumatic events (PTEs) among a nationally representative US sample of 5071 non-Latino whites, 3264 Latinos, 2178 Asians, 4249 African Americans, and 1476 Afro-Caribbeans. METHODS: PTSD and other psychiatric disorders were evaluated using the World Mental Health-Composite International Diagnostic Interview (WMH-CIDI) in a national household sample that oversampled ethnic/racial minorities (n=16,238) but was weighted to produce results representative of the general population. RESULTS: Asians have lower prevalence rates of probable lifetime PTSD, whereas African Americans have higher rates as compared with non-Latino whites, even after adjusting for type and number of exposures to traumatic events, and for sociodemographic, clinical, and social support factors. Afro-Caribbeans and Latinos seem to demonstrate similar risk to non-Latino whites, adjusting for these same covariates. Higher rates of probable PTSD exhibited by African Americans and lower rates for Asians, as compared with non-Latino whites, do not appear related to differential symptom endorsement, differences in risk or protective factors, or differences in types and frequencies of PTEs across groups. CONCLUSIONS: There appears to be marked differences in conditional risk of probable PTSD across ethnic/racial groups. Questions remain about what explains risk of probable PTSD. Several factors that might account for these differences are discussed, as well as the clinical implications of our findings. Uncertainty of the PTSD diagnostic assessment for Latinos and Asians requires further evaluation.

Public health consequences of terrorism on maternal-child health in New York City and Madrid.

Past research provides evidence for trajectories of health and wellness among individuals following disasters that follow specific pathways of resilience, resistance, recovery, or continued dysfunction. These individual responses are influenced by event type and pre-event capacities. This study was designed to utilize the trajectories of health model to determine if it translates to population health. We identified terrorist attacks that could potentially impact population health rather than only selected individuals within the areas of the attacks. We chose to examine a time series of population birth outcomes before and after the terrorist events of the New York City (NYC) World Trade Center (WTC) attacks of 2001 and the Madrid, Spain train bombings of 2004 to determine if the events affected maternal-child health of those cities and, if so, for how long. For percentages of low birth weight (LBW) and preterm births, we found no significant effects from the WTC attacks in NYC and transient but significant effects on rates of LBW and preterm births following the bombings in Madrid. We did find a significant positive and sustained effect on infant mortality rate in NYC following the WTC attacks but no similar effect in Madrid. There were no effects on any of the indicator variables in the comparison regions of New York state and the remainder of Spain. Thus, population maternal-health in New York and Madrid showed unique adverse effects after the terrorist attacks in those cities. Short-term effects on LBW and preterm birth rates in Madrid and long-term effects on infant mortality rates in NYC were found when quarterly data were analyzed from 1990 through 2008/2009. These findings raise questions about chronic changes in the population's quality of life following catastrophic terrorist attacks. Public health should be monitored and interventions designed to address chronic stress, environmental, and socioeconomic threats beyond the acute aftermath of events.

Immediate and longer-term stressors and the mental health of Hurricane Ike survivors.

Previous research has documented that individuals exposed to more stressors during disasters and their immediate aftermath (immediate stressors) are at risk of experiencing longer-term postdisaster stressors. Longer-term stressors, in turn, have been found to play a key role in shaping postdisaster psychological functioning. Few studies have simultaneously explored the links from immediate to longer-term stressors, and from longer-term stressors to psychological functioning, however. Additionally, studies have inadequately explored whether postdisaster psychological symptoms influence longer-term stressors. In the current study, we aimed to fill these gaps. Participants (N = 448) were from population-based study of Hurricane Ike survivors and completed assessments 2-5 months (Wave 1), 5-9 months (Wave 2) and 14-18 months (Wave 3) postdisaster. Through path analysis, we found that immediate stressors, assessed at Wave 1, were positively associated with Wave 2 and Wave 3 stressors, which in turn were positively associated with Wave 2 and Wave 3 posttraumatic stress and depressive symptoms. Wave 2 posttraumatic stress symptoms were positively associated with Wave 3 stressors, and Wave 1 depressive symptoms were positively associated with Wave 2 stressors. The findings suggest that policies and interventions can reduce the impact of disasters on mental health by preventing and alleviating both immediate and longer-term postdisaster stressors.

Displacement, county social cohesion, and depression after a large-scale traumatic event.

BACKGROUND: Depression is a common and potentially debilitating consequence of traumatic events. Mass traumatic events cause wide-ranging disruptions to community characteristics, influencing the population risk of depression. In the aftermath of such events, population displacement is common. Stressors associated with displacement may increase risk of depression directly. Indirectly, persons who are displaced may experience erosion in social cohesion, further exacerbating their risk for depression. METHODS: Using data from a population-based cross-sectional survey of adults living in the 23 southernmost counties of Mississippi (N = 708), we modeled the independent and joint relations of displacement and county-level social cohesion with depression 18-24 months after Hurricane Katrina. RESULTS: After adjustment for individual- and county-level socio-demographic characteristics and county-level hurricane exposure, joint exposure to both displacement and low social cohesion was associated with substantially higher log-odds of depression (b = 1.34 [0.86-1.83]). Associations were much weaker for exposure only to low social cohesion (b = 0.28 [-0.35-0.90]) or only to displacement (b = 0.04 [-0.80-0.88]). The associations were robust to additional adjustment for individually perceived social cohesion and social support. CONCLUSION: Addressing the multiple, simultaneous disruptions that are a hallmark of mass traumatic events is important to identify vulnerable populations and understand the psychological ramifications of these events.

The Communities Advancing Resilience Toolkit (CART): an intervention to build community resilience to disasters.

Community resilience has emerged as a construct to support and foster healthy individual, family, and community adaptation to mass casualty incidents. The Communities Advancing Resilience Toolkit (CART) is a publicly available theory-based and evidence-informed community intervention designed to enhance community resilience by bringing stakeholders together to address community issues in a process that includes assessment, feedback, planning, and action. Tools include a field-tested community resilience survey and other assessment and analytical instruments. The CART process encourages public engagement in problem solving and the development and use of local assets to address community needs. CART recognizes 4 interrelated domains that contribute to community resilience: connection and caring, resources, transformative potential, and disaster management. The primary value of CART is its contribution to community participation, communication, self-awareness, cooperation, and critical reflection and its ability to stimulate analysis, collaboration, skill building, resource sharing, and purposeful action.

The Communities Advancing Resilience Toolkit (CART): development of a survey instrument to assess community resilience.

While building community resilience to disasters is becoming an important strategy in emergency management, this is a new field of research with few available instruments for assessing community resilience. This article describes the development of the Communities Advancing Resilience Toolkit (CART) survey instrument. CART is a community intervention designed to enhance community resilience to disasters, in part, by engaging communities in measuring it. The survey instrument, originally based on community capacity and related literature and on key informant input, was refined through a series of four field tests. Community organizations worked with researchers in a participatory action process that provided access to samples and helped to guide the research. Exploratory factor analysis performed after each field test led to the identification of four interrelated constructs (also called domains) which represent the foundation for CART Connection and Caring, Resources, Transformative Potential, and Disaster Management. This model was confirmed using confirmatory factor analysis on two community samples. The CART survey can provide data for organizations and communities interested in assessing a community's resilience to disasters. Baseline data, preferably collected pre disaster can be compared to data collected post disaster and/or post intervention.

Framework for research on children's reactions to disasters and terrorist events.

Clinical work and research relative to child mental health during and following disaster are especially challenging due to the complex child maturational processes and family and social contexts of children's lives. The effects of disasters and terrorist events on children and adolescents necessitate diligent and responsible preparation and implementation of research endeavors. Disasters present numerous practical and methodological barriers that may influence the selection of participants, timing of assessments, and constructs being investigated. This article describes an efficient approach to guide both novice and experienced researchers as they prepare to conduct disaster research involving children. The approach is based on five fundamental research questions: "Why?, Who?, When?, What?, and How?" Addressing each of the "four Ws" will assist researchers in determining "How" to construct and implement a study from start to finish. A simple diagram of the five questions guides the reader through the components involved in studying children's reactions to disasters. The use of this approach is illustrated with examples from disaster mental health studies in children, thus simultaneously providing a review of the literature.

The burden of disaster: part II. applying interventions across the child's social ecology.

This second of two articles describes the application of disaster mental health interventions within the context of the childs social ecology consisting of the Micro-, Meso-, Exo-, and Macrosystems. Microsystem interventions involving parents, siblings, and close friends include family preparedness planning andpractice, psychoeducation, role modeling, emotional support, and redirection. Mesosystem interventions provided by schools and faith-based organizations include safety and support, assessment, referral, and counseling. Exosystem interventions include those provided through community-based mental health programs, healthcare organizations, the workplace, the media, local volunteer disaster organizations, and other local organizations. Efforts to build community resilience to disasters are likely to have influence through the Exosystem. The Macrosystem - including the laws, history, cultural and subcultural characteristics, and economic and social conditions that underlie the other systems - affects the child indirectly through public policies and disaster programs and services that become available in the child's Exosystem in the aftermath of a disaster The social ecology paradigm, described more fully in a companion article (Noffsinger Pfefferbaum, Pfefferbaum, Sherrieb, & Norris,2012), emphasizes relationships among systems and can guide the development and delivery of services embedded in naturally-occurring structures in the child's environment.

The burden of disaster: Part I. Challenges and opportunities within a child's social ecology.

Child development and adaptation are best understood as biological and psychological individual processes occurring within the context of interconnecting groups, systems, and communities which, along with family, constitute the child's social ecology. This first of two articles describes the challenges and opportunities within a child's social ecology consisting of Micro-, Meso-, Exo-, and Macrosystems. The parent-child relationship, the most salient Microsystem influence in children's lives, plays an influential role in children's reactions to and recovery from disasters. Children, parents, and other adults participate in Mesosystem activities at schools and faith-based organizations. The Exosystem--including workplaces, social agencies, neighborhood, and mass media--directly affects important adults in children's lives. The Macrosystem affects disaster response and recovery indirectly through intangible cultural, social, economic, and political structures and processes. Children's responses to adversity occur in the context of these dynamically interconnected and interdependent nested environments, all of which endure the burden of disaster Increased understanding of the influences of and the relationships between key components contributes to recovery and rebuilding efforts, limiting disruption to the child and his or her social ecology A companion article (R. L. Pfefferbaum et al., in press) describes interventions across the child's social ecology.

Differences in the determinants of posttraumatic stress disorder and depression after a mass traumatic event.

BACKGROUND: Hurricane Ike struck the Galveston Bay area of Texas on September 13, 2008, leaving substantial destruction and a number of deaths in its wake. We assessed differences in the determinants of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression after this event, including the particular hurricane experiences, including postevent nontraumatic stressors, that were associated with these pathologies. METHODS: 658 adults who had been living in Galveston and Chambers counties, TX in the month before Hurricane Ike were interviewed 2-5 months after the hurricane. We collected information on experiences during and after Hurricane Ike, PTSD and depressive symptoms in the month before the interview, and socio-demographic characteristics. RESULTS: The prevalence of past month hurricane-related PTSD and depression was 6.1 and 4.9%, respectively. Hurricane experiences, but not socio-demographic characteristics, were associated with Ike-related PTSD. By contrast, lower education and household income, and more lifetime stressors were associated with depression, as were hurricane exposures and hurricane-related stressors. When looking at specific hurricane-related stressors, loss or damage of sentimental possessions was associated with both PTSD and depression; however, health problems related to Ike were associated only with PTSD, whereas financial loss as a result of the hurricane was associated only with depression. CONCLUSIONS: PTSD is indeed a disorder of event exposure, whereas risk of depression is more clearly driven by personal vulnerability and exposure to stressors. The role of nontraumatic stressors in shaping risk of both pathologies suggests that alleviating stressors after disasters has clear potential to mitigate the psychological sequelae of these events.

Intimate partner violence and Hurricane Katrina: predictors and associated mental health outcomes.

This study sought to establish the prevalence and correlates of intimate partner violence (IPV) victimization in the 6 months before and after Hurricane Katrina. Participants were 445 married or cohabiting persons who were living in the 23 southernmost counties of Mississippi at the time of Hurricane Katrina. Data for this study were collected as part of a larger, population-based, representative study. The percentage of women reporting psychological victimization increased from 33.6% prior to Hurricane Katrina to 45.2% following Hurricane Katrina (p < .001). The percentage of men reporting psychological victimization increased from 36.7% to 43.1% (p = .01). Reports of physical victimization increased from 4.2% to 8.3% for women (p = .01) but were unchanged for men. Significant predictors of post-Katrina victimization included pre-Katrina victimization, age, educational attainment, marital status, and hurricane-related stressors. Reports of IPV were associated with greater risk of post-Katrina depression and posttraumatic stress disorder. Data from the first population-based study to document IPV following a large-scale natural disaster suggest that IPV may be an important but often overlooked public health concern following disasters.

Training community therapists to deliver cognitive behavioral therapy in the aftermath of disaster.

In this paper we examine the effectiveness of disseminating Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Postdisaster Distress (CBT-PD) to community therapists in Baton Rouge, Louisiana following Hurricane Katrina. One hundred four therapists attended a two-day training in CBT-PD with on-going case consultation. Pre- and post-training, therapists rated eight core cognitive behavioral therapy elements on their importance, how well they understood how to deliver the element, and how confident they were in their ability to deliver the element. Post-training they completed a CBT-PD knowledge questionnaire and session fidelity forms. Seventy-seven clients completed satisfaction questionnaires and reported on how often they utilized the skills taught in CBT-PD. Therapists showed significant improvements in their ratings of the importance of various elements of cognitive behavioral therapy, their knowledge and understanding of those elements, and their confidence that they could use them effectively. Immediately following the training 90% of therapists demonstrated excellent retention of CBT-PD. Self-report measures from both therapists and clients indicated that critical session elements were delivered. This work suggests that CBT-PD can be applied in a real-world setting and that community therapists can be trained in relatively short time spans with on-going support. This finding is especially important in the disaster field given that communities are likely to find themselves in emergency situations in which a number of non-expert trauma therapists will need to deliver trauma services.

PTSD in Vietnamese Americans following Hurricane Katrina: prevalence, patterns, and predictors.

One year after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, we assessed 82 adults from a population-based sample of the Vietnamese American community who had participated in a larger study of immigration weeks before the disaster. Although 21% met criteria for partial posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), only 5% of the sample met all PTSD criteria. Avoidance/numbing symptoms did not form a coherent cluster and were seldom confirmed, but intrusion, arousal, and interference were common. Severity of exposure to the floodwaters, property loss, and subjective trauma were independently related to PTSD symptoms. Symptoms were highest among participants who were low in acculturation or who had high Katrina exposure in combination with prolonged stays in transition camps during emigration.

Childhood trauma and adulthood physical health in Mexico.

BACKGROUND: The present study examined the effect of childhood trauma on adulthood physical health among a randomly selected sample of adults (N = 2,177) in urban Mexico. METHODS: Adults were interviewed about their experiences of trauma, post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, and physical health symptoms using Module K of the Composite International Diagnostic Interview, the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale, and the Physical Symptoms Checklist. RESULTS: Trauma was prevalent, with 35% reporting a traumatic event in childhood. In general, men reported more childhood trauma than women, with the exception of childhood sexual violence where women reported more exposure. For men, childhood sexual violence was related to total and all physical health symptom subscales. For women, childhood sexual violence was related to total, muscular-skeletal, and gastrointestinal-urinary symptoms; hazards/accidents in childhood were related to total, muscular-skeletal, cardio-pulmonary, and nose-throat symptom subscales. Depression mediated the relationship between childhood sexual violence and physical health symptoms for men and women. Among women only, PTSD mediated the relationship between childhood sexual violence and total, muscular-skeletal, and gastrointestinal-urinary symptoms. PTSD also mediated the relationship between hazards/accidents in childhood and total, muscular-skeletal, cardio-pulmonary, and nose-throat symptoms. CONCLUSION: These findings can be used to increase awareness among general practitioners, as well as community stakeholders, about the prevalence of childhood trauma in Mexican communities and its impact on subsequent physical health outcomes. With this awareness, screening practices could be developed to identify those with trauma histories in order to increase positive health outcomes among trauma survivors.

Innovations in disaster mental health services and evaluation: national, state, and local responses to Hurricane Katrina (introduction to the special issue).

The severe consequences of Hurricane Katrina on mental health have sparked tremendous interest in improving the quality of mental health care for disaster victims. In this special issue, we seek to illustrate the breadth of work emerging in this area. The five empirical examples each reflect innovation, either in the nature of the services being provided or in the evaluation approach. Most importantly, they portray the variability of post-Katrina mental health programs, which ranged from national to state to local in scope and from educational to clinical in intensity. As a set, these papers address the fundamental question of whether it is useful and feasible to provide different intensities of mental health care to different populations according to presumed need. The issue concludes with recommendations for future disaster mental health service delivery and evaluation.

Evaluation of a national effort to reach Hurricane Katrina survivors and evacuees: the crisis counseling assistance and training program.

Hurricane Katrina created the largest population of internally displaced persons in the history of the United States. Exceptions to Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA's) usual eligibility requirements allowed states from across the nation to apply for Crisis Counseling Assistance and Training Program (CCP) grants to provide services to evacuees. Over a 16-month period, crisis counselors documented 1.2 million individual and group encounters across 19 CCPs. Most encounters (936,000, 80%) occurred in Presidential disaster-declared areas of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, but many (237,000, 20%) occurred in 16 smaller "undeclared" programs across the country. Programs showed excellent reach relative to external benchmarks provided by FEMA registrations for individual assistance and population characteristics. Programs varied widely in service mix and intensity. The declared programs reached more people, but the undeclared programs provided more intensive services to fewer people with higher needs.

Piloting a new model of crisis counseling: specialized crisis counseling services in Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina.

During January-April 2007, Project Recovery, a federally funded crisis counseling program implemented by Mississippi's Department of Mental Health, piloted a new model of Specialized Crisis Counseling Services (SCCS) on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. In this team-based approach, a masters-level counselor trained in a variety of intervention techniques and a resource coordinator worked together with persons whose needs were relatively intense. Compared to regular program (RCCS) participants over the same interval (n = 29,522), SCCS participants (n = 281) were more likely to be female, middle-aged, and at greater risk for severe distress. In a participant survey conducted in both programs over the same week, SCCS participants reported significantly greater benefit than did RCCS participants. A subset of 129 SCCS participants provided pre- and post-participation assessments and showed large improvements in disaster-related distress.