THE SOCIAL AND CULTURAL DYNAMICS OF DISASTER RECOVERY

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DESCRIPTION (Applicant's Abstract): In October, 1999, devastating floods left 400 people dead and 200,000 people homeless across a nine state area of Mexico. Officials in Mexico have characterized this event as the country's worst flooding disaster of the decade, if not of the century. The proposed study on the consequences of this event will yield insights into the impact of disasters that occur in poor and developing countries. Although the majority of disasters occur in the developing world, very little of the research has. The proposed research builds directly upon studies conducted since this grant was last competitively renewed. These studies included (a) an ethnographic study of disaster recovery in Mexico, (b) a pilot study of Hurricane Flaulina that allowed the construct validity and reliability of measures to be examined, and (c) a four-city epidemiologic study that has provided data on normative levels of symptoms and resources, including the prevalence of major depression (MDD) and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in Mexico. The data provided by the epidemiologic survey will facilitate the interpretation of data yielded by the same measures when they are administered in the aftermath of disaster. A RAPID grant was submitted simultaneously with this one to fund interviews with 600 randomly selected adults from Villahermosa, Tobasco and Teziutlan, Puebla 4 months post-event. The present proposal would fund collection of data from the same adults at 8, 12, 16, and 20 months post-event. The study's resulting longitudinal design would allow examination of the severity, timing, and course of psychological reactions to the disaster. The study would have adequate power to examine whether trends in post-disaster symptoms and resources vary across gender, economic class, and psychiatric history. Specific models and hypotheses are advanced that may explain why women, the poor, and psychiatric cases suffer more adversity in the aftermath of disasters. Meta-analytic methods will be employed to synthesize and integrate the proposed study's findings into a growing international database. The research team combines expertise in trauma, Latino culture, and Mexican society. Collaborative relationships between the applicant organization and researchers in Mexico have been established.