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The stress, resource, and symptom levels of 241 residents of southern Dade County, Florida were assessed 6 and 30 months after Hurricane Andrew. Percentages meeting study criteria for depression and PTSD did not change over time. Whereas mean levels of intrusion and arousal decreased, depressive symptoms remained stable, and avoidance/numbing symptoms actually increased. Intrusion and arousal were associated more strongly with pre-disaster factors (gender, ethnicity) and within-disaster factors (injury, property loss) than with post-disaster factors (stress, resources), but the reverse was true for depression and avoidance. Changes over time in symptoms were largely explained by changes over time in stress and resources. The findings indicate that ongoing services are needed to supplement the crisis-oriented assistance typically offered to disaster victims.

ⅢWe describe in this study the various ways that survivors may experience social support and conflict after a disaster. Using unstructured interviews, 25 Mexicans0Mexican Americans (14 women, 11 men) were asked to recount the ways that they received support, as well as the ways they experienced conflict. Interviews occurred across three cities: Guadalajara, Jalisco (n ϭ 9), Homestead, Florida (n ϭ 6), and Puerto Angel, Oaxaca (n ϭ 10). Recurrent themes were found for both support and conflict. Survivors reported more support from informal sources (family, neighbors) than formal sources (government) This research was supported by Grant No. RO1 MH51278 from the Prevention and Epidemiology Branch of the National Institute of Mental Health, Fran H. Norris, Principal Investigator. Gladys Ibañez coordinated the qualitative study. Appreciation is extended to Martha Rees, Manuel Esparza, Art Murphy, and Julia Perilla for their assistance in conducting the interviews; and to Nadya Khatchikian, Dolores Coronel Ortis, Salome Perez, and Leonor Angarita for transcribing and translating the interviews. Correspondence to: Fran H. Norris, Department of Psychology, Georgia State University, University Plaza Atlanta, GA 30303. E-mail: fnorris@gsu.edu Vol. 31, No. 1, 1-23 (2003) © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI: 10.1002/jcop.10032 When a disaster strikes, its effects reverberate throughout the many social networks and political systems that exist within communities. As a community begins to tend to the physical and emotional wounds caused by the disaster, those networks and systems respond in various ways. The assumption is that communities will typically mobilize various informal and formal social support resources immediately following the disaster, but it is not clear whether this is always the case. An alternative outcome is that conflict may arise because of competition for limited resources. There is still much to be learned about what factors contribute to variations in community response. The present study is an exploratory study that examines three Mexican0Mexican American communities' responses to a disaster in the form of support mobilization or conflict. Specifically, are Mexican0Mexican American communities more likely to respond to a disaster by increasing social support or social conflict? A R T I C L E JOURNAL OF COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGY, IMPORTANCE OF CROSSCULTURAL RESEARCHAccording to Triandis and Brislin~1984!, by testing one's theory in different cultural contexts, the relevance and validity of the theory for all human beings~and not only one's own culture! can be established. Despite the benefits and the need to integrate culture and crosscultural considerations into our research activities and theoretical models, culture and cultural influences are factors that often go unrecognized by researchers~Sue, 1996!. Albert~1988! suggested several possible explanations for why this may occur, including investigators' lack of contact and expe...