Toward Developing Postdisaster Community Interventions

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): To bridge the often-noted gap between research and practice in the field of disaster mental health, the candidate seeks to make a career transition from conducting relatively basic research on the psychosocial consequences of natural disasters toward developing and evaluating interventions that actively promote psychosocial recovery in the wake of disasters. A professor of community psychology at Georgia State University, the candidate has published 68 articles and chapters and has been continuously funded by grants from NTMH since 1986. Although she has studied the effects of violence and bereavement, as well as the epidemiology of trauma and PTSD, most of her work over the past 15 years has concerned disasters, with an emphasis on how postdisaster recovery is linked to the mobilization and deterioration of social resources. How these processes are shaped by culture and gender has become increasingly central in her work, and she is presently the principal investigator of a longitudinal study of disaster recovery in Mexico. In this study, samples selected randomly from two communities that experienced massive flooding and landslides in 1999 are being interviewed at points 6, 12, 18, and 24 months postevent using a comprehensive interview that includes selected CIDI modules (MDD, PTSD) as well as multiple measures of current symptoms and material, social, and psychological resources. Norms for all measures are provided by the candidate?s epidemiologic study of trauma in Mexico. On the basis of prior theoretical and empirical work, the candidate proposes that it is critical to develop intervention strategies that are community centered, culturally sensitive, resource providing, and data based. The intervention objective is to build the community?s capacity to make informed choices, while recognizing that the choices remain the community?s own. To provide the applicant with the skills and perspectives required for action research, the training plan incorporates practical field experiences, advanced training in medical anthropology, and directed reviews of the community organization and intervention literatures. Preliminary arrangements have been made for on-site experiences with (a) the Center for Mental Health Services (SAMHSA), the federal agency charged with providing services to disaster victims, (b) The Anthropology Department and Center for Disaster Management and Humanitarian Assistance at the University of South Florida, (c) and the National Center for PTSD (Disaster Services, Palo Alto). The research plan integrates the candidate?s theoretical work on resource mobilization and deterioration, her current epidemiologic studies of trauma and disaster recovery in Mexico, a newly proposed survey of standard and innovative practice in disaster mental health, and extensive interdisciplinary scholarship. Proposed products include integrative reviews of the literature and a preliminary program model and research design.