Measuring Individual Disaster Recovery: A Socioecological Framework

Abstract

<jats:title>ABSTRACT</jats:title><jats:p><jats:bold>Background:</jats:bold> Disaster recovery is a complex phenomenon. Too often, recovery is measured in singular fashion, such as quantifying rebuilt infrastructure or lifelines, without taking in to account the affected population's individual and community recovery. A comprehensive framework is needed that encompasses a much broader and far-reaching construct with multiple underlying dimensions and numerous causal pathways; without the consideration of a comprehensive framework that investigates relationships between these factors, an accurate measurement of recovery may not be valid. This study proposes a model that encapsulates these ideas into a single framework, the <jats:italic>Socio-Ecological Model of Recovery</jats:italic>.</jats:p><jats:p><jats:bold>Methods:</jats:bold> Using confirmatory factor analysis, an operational measure of recovery was developed and validated using the five measures of housing stability, economic stability, physical health, mental health, and social role adaptation. The data were drawn from a sample of displaced households following Hurricane Katrina. Measures of psychological strength, risk, disaster exposure, neighborhood contextual effects, and formal and informal help were modeled to examine their direct and indirect effects on recovery using a structural equation model.</jats:p><jats:p><jats:bold>Findings:</jats:bold> All five elements of the recovery measure were positively correlated with a latent measure of recovery, although mental health and social role adaptation displayed the strongest associations. An individual's psychological strength had the greatest association with positive recovery, followed by having a household income greater than $20 000 and having informal social support. Those factors most strongly associated with an absence of recovery included the time displaced since the hurricane, being disabled, and living in a community with substantial social disorder.</jats:p><jats:p><jats:bold>Discussion:</jats:bold> The socio-ecological framework provides a robust means for measuring recovery, and for testing those factors associated with the presence or absence of recovery.</jats:p><jats:p>(<jats:italic>Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness</jats:italic>. 2010;4:S46-S54)</jats:p>

The Mental Health Effects of Torture Trauma and Its Severity: A Replication and Extension

“…Holistic, interdisciplinary torture rehabilitation models emerged early on (by 1984) in Copenhagen by RCT group (e.g., Ortmann, Genefke, Jakobson, & Lunde, 1987). Variants and expansions of the model have been emerged and further developed, for example, the wraparound approach for psycho-social rehabilitation of torture survivors (e.g., Silove, Tarn, Bowles, & Reid, 1991;Kira, 2002Kira, , 2010, ecological group therapy models that focus on community healing (Kira, Ahmed et al, 2012b), post-disaster ecological recovery model, (Abramson et al, 2010). While such models have social and ecological validity as inherent programmatic feature, empirical evidence of its effectiveness is not yet established through controlled double blind studies.…”

“…While such models have social and ecological validity as inherent programmatic feature, empirical evidence of its effectiveness is not yet established through controlled double blind studies. However, there is strong empirical evidence for the effectiveness of some of their variants (e.g., Abramson et al, 2010). There is some empirical evidence of the effectiveness of multi-component multi-systemic wraparound torture rehabilitation approach (e.g., McColl et al, 2010).…”

Factors Associated with Continued Food Insecurity among Households Recovering from Hurricane Katrina

“…A bias analysis conducted by the G-CAFH Study team demonstrated that there are no significant differences due to attrition between the cohort at wave one and at wave four. Additional information on study design and methodology has been published elsewhere [38,39]. …”

Review Paper: Indicators of Life Recovery after Disasters and Emergencies

“…In the past decade, there have been efforts to design a systematic model to explain and measure the recovery process after disasters [14,19]. The scarcity of measurable indicators and the focus of studies on case studies have limited the possibility to compare the outcomes between different incidents and their follow up [14,19,20]. For this purpose, in various studies, efforts have been made to identify and examine the components and dimensions of life recovery after disasters and to design indicators for measuring the outcomes.…”

“…Abramson study (2010) was conducted to develop an operational measure of individual recovery and determined, and a stable housing, economic stability, physical health, mental health, and social role adaptation have been considered as important factors [20]. In addition, Dwyer study (2014) considered structural and non-structural recovery at community level.…”