David N. Sattler

Hurricane Georges: A Cross-National Study Examining Preparedness, Resource Loss, and Psychological Distress in the U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, and the United States

This cross-national study examined preparation for and psychological functioning following Hurricane Georges in the U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, and the United States. Four to five weeks after the storm made landfall, 697 college students (222 men, 476 women) completed a questionnaire assessing demographic characteristics, preparation, social support, resource loss, and symptoms associated with acute stress disorder. Location, resource loss (especially personal characteristic resources) and social support accounted for a significant portion of psychological distress variance. The findings support the conservation of resources stress theory (Hobfoll, 1989, 1998). Implications of the findings and future research directions are discussed.

Hurricane Andrew: Psychological distress among shelter victims

This study examined psychological distress and functioning among Hurricane Andrew victims who lost their homes and were living in shelters. Four and one-half weeks after Hurricane Andrew struck southern Florida, 89 (45 males, 44 females) Blacks, Hispanics, and Whites completed a questionnaire. The questionnaire asked for information about psychological and psychophysiological symptoms, use of mental health services, coping responses, and extent of preparation for the storm. The findings suggest that loss of home and property were related to distress and depression. About one-quarter of the sample were moderately depressed. Over one-third of the sample reported experiencing psychological and psychophysiological distress. Approximately one-half of the subjects did not take the hurricane warnings seriously. White subjects began preparing earlier for the storm, and evacuated their homes more frequently than did Black subjects. Implications of the findings and future research directions are discussed.

Grant Peer Review: Improving Inter-Rater Reliability with Training

This study developed and evaluated a brief training program for grant reviewers that aimed to increase inter-rater reliability, rating scale knowledge, and effort to read the grant review criteria. Enhancing reviewer training may improve the reliability and accuracy of research grant proposal scoring and funding recommendations. Seventy-five Public Health professors from U.S. research universities watched the training video we produced and assigned scores to the National Institutes of Health scoring criteria proposal summary descriptions. For both novice and experienced reviewers, the training video increased scoring accuracy (the percentage of scores that reflect the true rating scale values), inter-rater reliability, and the amount of time reading the review criteria compared to the no video condition. The increase in reliability for experienced reviewers is notable because it is commonly assumed that reviewers—especially those with experience—have good understanding of the grant review rating scale. The findings suggest that both experienced and novice reviewers who had not received the type of training developed in this study may not have appropriate understanding of the definitions and meaning for each value of the rating scale and that experienced reviewers may overestimate their knowledge of the rating scale. The results underscore the benefits of and need for specialized peer reviewer training.

Trauma-exposed Firefighters: Relationships among Posttraumatic Growth, Posttraumatic Stress, Resource Availability, Coping and Critical Incident Stress Debriefing Experience

This project examines protective factors associated with resilience/posttraumatic growth and risk factors associated with posttraumatic stress among firefighters exposed to critical incidents. The participants were 286 (257 men and 29 women) volunteer and paid firefighters in Whatcom County, Washington. Participants completed an anonymous survey asking about demographics, critical incident exposure, posttraumatic stress symptoms, posttraumatic growth, resource availability, coping, occupational stress and critical incident stress debriefing experience. Most participants had significant critical incident exposure, and about half had attended critical incident stress debriefing sessions. Posttraumatic growth was associated with being female, critical incident exposure, critical incident stress debriefing attendance, posttraumatic stress symptoms (negative association), occupational support, occupation satisfaction, occupational effort, problem-focused coping, emotion-focused coping and personal characteristic resources. Posttraumatic stress symptoms were positively associated with years of firefighting, burnout, occupational effort and disengagement coping and negatively associated with critical incident stress debriefing attendance, posttraumatic growth, social support, internal locus of control, personal characteristic resources, energy resources and condition resources. The findings support conservation of resources stress theory and show that the maintenance and acquisition of resources can offset losses and facilitate resilience/posttraumatic growth. Implications of the findings for enhancing firefighter resources, facilitating resilience and minimizing occupational stressors are discussed.

Indian Ocean Tsunami: Relationships Among Posttraumatic Stress, Posttraumatic Growth, Resource Loss, and Coping at 3 and 15 Months

This study examines variables associated with posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTS) and posttraumatic growth among 2 independent samples of survivors following the Indian Ocean tsunami in Khao Lak, Thailand. Participants were exposed to unprecedented horror and loss of life and property. At 3 months participants (N = 248) were living in temporary shelters, and at 15 months a second sample (N = 255) was living in homes built after the tsunami. Prior traumatic experiences, life threat, loss of personal characteristic resources and condition resources, somatic problems, and social support accounted for close to half of the variance in PTS in each sample. At 3 months, emotion-focused coping and concerns about government favoritism also contributed to PTS. At 15 months, lack of prior disaster experience and loss of energy resources also contributed to PTS. Distress was higher among participants surveyed at 3 months than among those surveyed at 15 months. Posttraumatic growth was positively associated with social support and problem-focused coping in both samples. The findings support conservation of resources stress theory (Hobfoll, 2012) and underscore how systemic issues affect mental health. The implications of the findings are discussed, as is the educational International Tsunami Museum designed by the first author to address systemic stressors.

Family Resources, Family Strains, and Stress Following the Northridge Earthquake

This study examined the relationships among family resource losses, family coping, social support, family stresses and strains, and psychological distress following a 6.7 magnitude earthquake in Northridge, California. The project includes a control group of persons living in a city that did not experience the earthquake. One month after the event, 301 participants (118 men, 183 women) completed a questionnaire asking about demographics, family coping, family stresses and strains, social support network, resource loss, and symptoms associated with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). PTSD symptoms were associated with being female, family strains, resource loss (especially personal characteristic and energy), and depression. Participants experiencing the earthquake had higher distress levels than those in the control group who did not experience the earthquake. Implications and future research directions are discussed.

The socioeconomic effects of a landslide in Western Washington

Abstract Landslides can create permanently unstable sites that cannot be repaired or developed, and as a result, can cause severe economic and social consequences for families and communities. This study examines the economic and social effects of a landslide that struck Western Washington in February 1999. Two years after the landslide, property owners completed a confidential questionnaire. Property owners experienced significant personal financial losses and received little financial assistance to recover. Most (93%) did not receive any relief from their insurance policies, and 7% received only temporary rental assistance. Participants reported a variety of monetary and personal losses that were associated with emotional distress. They also reported a variety of gains and new perspectives on life. In this paper, we consider mechanisms to reduce the economic losses of landslides as well as implications and future research directions.

Active shooter on campus: evaluating text and e-mail warning message effectiveness

Recent events involving active shooters on campus underscore the importance of promptly notifying the campus community so students, faculty, and staff can take protective action as the incident develops. This study (a) developed warning messages informing the campus of an active shooter that can be delivered to cellular telephones and e-mail accounts, and (b) assessed their effectiveness. Participants were 264 (76 men, 188 women) undergraduate students at Western Washington University who indicated their understanding of and anticipated responses to text and e-mail messages. Participants indicated that they understood the instructions and would take the actions indicated in the messages. The results indicate text and e-mail messages are effective ways to notify and provide coherent instructions to the community during a life threatening emergency. This approach may be modified to create templates for other emergencies and disasters (e.g., earthquakes, tornadoes).

Climate Change and Extreme Weather Events: The Mental Health Impact

Climate change has the potential to increase the strength, intensity, and frequency of extreme weather events that threaten lives and property and affect the physical and psychological well-being of millions of people (United Nations 2014). This chapter considers how exposure to extreme weather events associated with climate change may influence preparedness for new threats and mental health and psychological functioning. Conservation of resources stress theory (Hobfoll 2012) is presented as a framework to examine these issues. The need for a chapter examining the mental health consequences of exposure to extreme weather events associated with climate change became apparent following research examining mental health in the wake of Super Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines and Cyclone Winston in Fiji. Exposure to an extreme weather event, life threat, resource loss, resource loss spirals, and secondary stresses that develop during recovery can negatively affect mental health and psychological functioning. Prospects for projects that educate about extreme weather events, including their cause, destructive potential, and ways to mitigate damage are discussed.

A Psychological Model of Climate Change Adaptation: Influence of Resource Loss, Posttraumatic Growth, Norms, and Risk Perception Following Cyclone Winston in Fiji

This chapter examines behavioral intentions to prevent climate change and climate change risk perceptions among people living in coastal communities in Fiji following Cyclone Winston, a natural disaster whose strength was likely increased by climate change. Cyclone Winston was one of the strongest cyclones ever recorded in the Southern Hemisphere and the strongest to make landfall in Fiji. The study extends our psychological climate change risk perception model to examine how posttraumatic growth following Cyclone Winston influenced behavioral intentions to prevent climate change (Sattler and Graham 2017). Posttraumatic growth can occur in response to experiencing a traumatic stressor and involves reflecting on life priorities and what gives live meaning (Calhoun and Tedeschi 2001). We also tested van der Linden’s (2015) climate change risk perception model by considering how individual and socio-cultural variables influence climate change risk perception, and extended it to predict behavioral intentions to prevent climate change. For this study, we used behavioral intentions as a proxy for behavioral adaption. The participants, 274 persons (160 men, 114 women) in coastal communities in Fiji (age: M = 39, SD = 14), completed measures assessing climate change risk perception; knowledge, affect, and social norms concerning climate change; behavioral intention to prevent climate change, and demographics. The findings show three pathways to climate change adaptation/behavioral intention to prevent climate change: (1) posttraumatic growth mediates the relationship between resource loss due to the cyclone and education with behavioral intentions to prevent climate change, (2) resource loss due to the cyclone activates social norms concerning climate change action, which in turn leads to behavioral intention to prevent climate change, and (3) climate change risk perception mediates the influence of social norms, knowledge, and affect on behavioral intentions to prevent climate change. The findings support and extend our psychological model and van der Linden’s model. Implications of the findings for climate change adaptation and education are discussed.