Post-Disaster Resilience: Lessions Learned From the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

The psychological and behavioral consequences of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster may be among the most widespread, long term and costly of all oil spill-related impacts. However, many people are resilient, and understanding the factors associated with better recovery are needed to guide prevention and early intervention activities. Toward this end, a cohort of NE Gulf Coast residents were studied with standard psychological, psychosocial, and risk perception measures during the oil spill and for one, two, and three years thereafter. Combining the results of several of these studies suggests that: elevated levels of mental health problems were found up to two years post spill; environmental risk perception was actually worse one year post spill than during the oil spill; income stability, higher self-reported resilience, lower environmental risk perception, and fewer lifetime stressors were associated with better mental health outcomes. Within the context of methodological challenges associated with post-disaster research, the possibility is raised that oil spills are protracted disasters, and that individual resilience is a complex process extending beyond individual strengths, weaknesses and perceptions to involve economic, community, and cultural variables. These factors support an “activation” model of resilience currently in development.Air date: 12/20/2013 2:00:00 PM
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