Abstract
It has become clear that disasters have a negative impact on mental health. To date, virtually all studies using control groups have found that disaster exposed individuals fare more poorly than their non-exposed peers, at least in the short run. Negative effects have also been shown with regard to general health and the use of services in the community. Risk factors for negative responses to these events have also been well-studied. The present report briefly summarizes this literature, as well as the literature addressing the impact of these events over time in adults and children. The review will focus on studies which have examined the impact of these events for at least a year. While this is actually a short follow-up, compared to, for example, the events of World War II, it likely captures more chronic, as opposed to acute, effects. Next, I will note the importance of the context in which the event occurs, and that disasters in some areas may be more devastating than the same type of event in a different region. My and my colleagues’ work in the Buffalo Creek disaster, including two second decade follow-ups, will be briefly described, and some beginning hypotheses about the shift in risk for negative outcomes over time, depending on one’s subgroup, will be offered. Finally, I will suggest areas where research is needed to better understand the impact of these events on mental health over time.
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Green, B.L. (1995). Long-Term Consequences of Disasters. In: Hobfoll, S.E., de Vries, M.W. (eds) Extreme Stress and Communities: Impact and Intervention. NATO ASI Series, vol 80. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-8486-9_14
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-8486-9_14
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