After a year filled with wildfires, floods, and hurricanes, many in the US are finding themselves forced out of their homes, either temporarily or permanently, with all sorts of disruptive effects on their wellbeing. Without this stability of regular shelter, many survivors are finding themselves facing mental health challenges, limiting their ability to make big decisions at a time when they’re often faced with a barrage of them.
Speaking to Scientific American, Matt Dwyer, disaster mental health supervisor with the American Red Cross, and Joshua Morganstein, chair of the American Psychiatric Association’s Committee on the Psychiatric Dimensions of Disaster, discuss the relationships between mental health and natural disasters.
In their conversation, Dwyer and Morganstein work through the topics of the types of traumas that occur after a natural disaster on both short- and longer-term scales, the prevalence of PTSD, the disruptive effects on mental well being due to forced relocations caused by loss of housing, and other impacts to mental health. They also work through what can be done to help reduce traumatization, particularly for those remaining in areas that are prone to natural disasters, and the importance of community support in alleviating the immediate emotional distress.
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