Lori Peek

Becoming Muslim: The Development of a Religious Identity

This study explores the process of religious identity formation and examines the emergence of religion as the most salient source of personal and social identity for a group of second-generation Muslim Americans. Drawing on data gathered through participant observation, focus groups, and individual interviews with Muslim university students in New York and Colorado, three stages of religious identity development are presented: religion as ascribed identity; religion as chosen identity; and religion as declared identity. This research illustrates how religious identity emerges in social and historical context and demonstrates that its development is variable rather than static. Additionally, I discuss the impacts of September 11 and show how a crisis event can impel a particular identity-in this case, religious-to become even more central to an individuals concept of self. Through asserting the primacy of their religious identity over other forms of social identity, religion became a powerful base of personal identification and collective association for these young Muslims.

The social psychology of public response to warnings of a nuclear power plant accident

This article reviews the process of public response to warnings of an impending nuclear power plant emergency. Significant evidence exists to suggest that people engage in protective action in response to warnings based upon the substance and course through which emergency warning information is disseminated. The three basic components of a warning system are defined, and the elements of public response to warnings are summarized. Popular myths about public response to warnings are outlined and dispelled based upon current research verification. The conclusion provides an overview and synthesis of the warning response process.

Gender and Disaster: Foundations and Directions

Gendered disaster social science rests on the social fact of gender as a primary organizing principle of societies and the conviction that gender must be addressed if we are to claim knowledge about all people living in risky environments. Theoretically, researchers in the area are moving toward a more nuanced, international, and comparative approach that examines gender relations in the context of other categories of social difference and power such as race, ethnicity, nationality, and social class. At a practical level, researchers seek to bring to the art and science of disaster risk reduction a richer appreciation of inequalities and differences based on sex and gender. As the world learns from each fresh tragedy, gender relations are part of the human experience of disasters and may under some conditions lead to the denial of the fundamental human rights of women and girls in crisis.

Using focus groups: lessons from studying daycare centers, 9/11, and Hurricane Katrina

The purpose of this article is to examine focus groups as a qualitative research method. We describe and evaluate the use of focus groups based on three separate research projects: a study of teachers, parents, and children at two urban daycare centers; a study of the responses of second-generation Muslim Americans to the events of September 11; and a collaborative project on the experiences of children and youth following Hurricane Katrina. By examining three different projects, we are able to assess some of the strengths and challenges of the focus group as a research method. In addition, we analyze the design and implementation of focus groups, including information on participant recruitment, the most effective group size, group composition and issues of segmentation, how to carry out focus groups, and the ideal number of groups to conduct. We pay particular attention to the ways in which focus groups may serve a social support or empowerment function, and our research points to the strength of using this method with marginalized, stigmatized, or vulnerable individuals.

Children with Disabilities in the Context of Disaster: A Social Vulnerability Perspective.

An estimated 200 million children worldwide experience various forms of disability. This critical review extrapolates from existing literature in 2 distinct areas of scholarship: one on individuals with disabilities in disaster, and the other on children in disaster. The extant literature suggests that various factors may contribute to the physical, psychological, and educational vulnerability of children with disabilities in disaster, including higher poverty rates, elevated risk exposure, greater vulnerability to traumatic loss or separation from caregivers, more strain on parents, and poor postdisaster outcomes, unless medical, familial, social, and educational protections are in place and vital social networks are quickly reestablished. Future research needs are outlined in the conclusion.

The Effect of Proximity to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita on Subsequent Hurricane Outlook and Optimistic Bias

This study evaluated how individuals living on the Gulf Coast perceived hurricane risk after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. It was hypothesized that hurricane outlook and optimistic bias for hurricane risk would be associated positively with distance from the Katrina-Rita landfall (more optimism at greater distance), controlling for historically based hurricane risk and county population density, demographics, individual hurricane experience, and dispositional optimism. Data were collected in January 2006 through a mail survey sent to 1,375 households in 41 counties on the coast (n = 824, 60% response). The analysis used hierarchal regression to test hypotheses. Hurricane history and population density had no effect on outlook; individuals who were male, older, and with higher household incomes were associated with lower risk perception; individual hurricane experience and personal impacts from Katrina and Rita predicted greater risk perception; greater dispositional optimism predicted more optimistic outlook; distance had a small effect but predicted less optimistic outlook at greater distance (model R(2) = 0.21). The model for optimistic bias had fewer effects: age and community tenure were significant; dispositional optimism had a positive effect on optimistic bias; distance variables were not significant (model R(2) = 0.05). The study shows that an existing measure of hurricane outlook has utility, hurricane outlook appears to be a unique concept from hurricane optimistic bias, and proximity has at most small effects. Future extension of this research will include improved conceptualization and measurement of hurricane risk perception and will bring to focus several concepts involving risk communication.

Economics of disaster risk, social vulnerability, and mental health resilience.

We investigate the relationship between exposure to Hurricanes Katrina and/or Rita and mental health resilience by vulnerability status, with particular focus on the mental health outcomes of single mothers versus the general public. We advance a measurable notion of mental health resilience to disaster events. We also calculate the economic costs of poor mental health days added by natural disaster exposure. Negative binomial analyses show that hurricane exposure increases the expected count of poor mental health days for all persons by 18.7% (95% confidence interval [CI], 7.44-31.14%), and by 71.88% (95% CI, 39.48-211.82%) for single females with children. Monthly time-series show that single mothers have lower event resilience, experiencing higher added mental stress. Results also show that the count of poor mental health days is sensitive to hurricane intensity, increasing by a factor of 1.06 (95% CI, 1.02-1.10) for every billion (U.S.

Maternal Hurricane Exposure and Fetal Distress Risk

) dollars of damage added for all exposed persons, and by a factor of 1.08 (95% CI, 1.03-1.14) for single mothers. We estimate that single mothers, as a group, suffered over

A cognitive-affective scale for hurricane risk perception

130 million in productivity loss from added postdisaster stress and disability. Results illustrate the measurability of mental health resilience as a two-dimensional concept of resistance capacity and recovery time. Overall, we show that natural disasters regressively tax disadvantaged population strata.

Disaster Hits Home: A Model of Displaced Family Adjustment After Hurricane Katrina

Logistic regression and spatial analytic techniques are used to model fetal distress risk as a function of maternal exposure to Hurricane Andrew. First, monthly time series compare the proportion of infants born distressed in hurricane affected and unaffected areas. Second, resident births are analyzed in Miami-Dade and Broward counties, before, during, and after Hurricane Andrew. Third, resident births are analyzed in all Florida locales with 100,000 or more persons, comparing exposed and unexposed gravid females. Fourth, resident births are analyzed along Hurricane Andrews path from southern Florida to northeast Mississippi. Results show that fetal distress risk increases significantly with maternal exposure to Hurricane Andrew in second and third trimesters, adjusting for known risk factors. Distress risk also correlates with the destructive path of Hurricane Andrew, with higher incidences of fetal distress found in areas of highest exposure intensity. Hurricane exposed African-American mothers were more likely to birth distressed infants. The policy implications of in utero costs of natural disaster exposure are discussed.