The human element: Study shows mental health gets worse with more disasters

Exposure to multiple disasters causes people to ‘wear out’, lowering mental health scores.

Written by Ashley Balzer, science writer (@AshleyBVigil)

Citation: by button, a. 2022, The Human Element: Study Shows Deterioration of Mental Health with Recurrence of Disasters, Temblor, http://doi.org/10.32858/temblor.238

Disaster response typically focuses on immediate and critical needs, such as search and rescue and the provision of food and water. Long-term recovery efforts tend to target external issues, including environmental restoration and the rebuilding of physical structures. But a new study highlights an important and often overlooked impact of disasters: mental health.

It turns out that what doesn’t kill you doesn’t always make you stronger, said the study’s lead author, Garrett Sansom, in a press release. After all, disasters are not the same as healthy physical exercise, which strengthens your body; These traumatic events can negatively affect mental health for decades. Despite the recent increase in climate-related disasters, to date, little is known about how frequent disasters may exacerbate this problem.

Search and rescue workers search for survivors after the 2011 Japanese tsunami. Credit: DFID (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

A threat to the body and mind

To assess these effects, a team of scientists conducted a mental health survey of more than a thousand people living in the Houston metropolitan area. Since this Gulf Coast region is vulnerable to both natural and man-made hazards, residents are often subjected to frequent disasters. Scientists have found that those who experienced a single disaster had lower mental health scores than the national average. Poor mental health is associated with a lower emotional and psychological state, which can lead to problems such as anxiety and depression.

The results got worse with each additional disaster the participants faced. “Experiencing a disaster makes people worse for wear — it prepares for worse mental health outcomes if they go through another,” says Leanne Fawkes, a doctoral student and graduate research assistant at Texas A&M University and co-author of the study. “We have a long way to go to increase community resilience in the wake of catastrophic events.”

Satellite image of Hurricane Harvey taken on August 26, 2017. Credit: NOAA Satellites (CC BY 2.0)

These findings are particularly poignant because climate change continues to make natural disasters more severe and more common. In a warmer climate, more water evaporates, which leads to more droughts and wildfires. This also means that there is more water vapor in the atmosphere to feed the storms.

Although the study focused on the Houston area, its effects will likely extend to those living in other disaster-prone areas, according to Fox. On average, natural disasters affect more than 200 million people worldwide each year.

Healing psychological scars

This research also highlights the importance of taking into account the human element in disaster recovery, beyond meeting urgent needs such as saving lives and healing the wounded. “Mental health affects the trajectory of people’s lives,” Fox says. Therefore, measures to address the long-term effects on mental health are of particular importance in areas where people are likely to experience frequent disasters.

Vincent Adams, an anthropologist at the University of California, San Francisco, also stresses that the stakes are high, saying: “As catastrophic events increase, chronic catastrophe syndrome can spread, resembling an intractable epidemic.” This syndrome, which is characterized by long-term negative psychological and physical effects, results from both disaster-induced displacement and trauma associated with collapsing infrastructure. “When basic needs such as health care services and access to food are disrupted, a secondary catastrophe can emerge in the form of psychological and physical deterioration resulting from stress and vulnerability.”

Going forward, Fox says she hopes more people will implement new strategies to treat the psychological effects of disasters as part of a more holistic approach to disaster recovery. “Future studies could target mental health impacts from specific disasters, such as earthquakes, to help community health officials tailor their intervention to the most relevant needs.”

references

Sansom, G. T., Thompson, C., Sansom, L., Fawkes, L., & Boerlin, E. (2022). Doubling the mental health effects of exposure to risk in Houston, Texas. Natural Hazards, 1-10. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-021-05158-x

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