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Disasters and Community Resilience

On April 20, 2010, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 workers and spilling millions of gallons of crude oil into the waters. I co-led the Consortium for Resilient Gulf Communities Health Team from 2015 to 2018 to estimate the social, economic, and public health effects of the oil spill on coastal communities. We developed and administered the Survey of Trauma, Resilience, and Opportunity of Neighborhoods in the Gulf (STRONG), a probability-based survey of coastal communities that assessed exposure to the oil spill, health, and networked adaptive capacities. We re-interviewed the sample in 2018 after the Gulf Coast’s notorious Hurricane season (Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria), making STRONG one of the only longitudinal assessments of community residents before and after a disaster.

Only titles and publication years provided; coauthor and other publication details provided at links.

Monographs

Building Community Resilience to Large Oil Spills: Findings and Recommendations from a Synthesis of Research on the Mental Health, Economic, and Community Distress Associated with the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill (2020)

Research Publications

Natech or Natural? An Analysis of Hazard Perceptions, Institutional Trust, and Future Storm Worry Following Hurricane Harvey (2020)

Behavioral health of Gulf Coast residents 6 years after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill: The role of trauma history (2019)

Exposure to the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, Associated Resource Loss, and Long-Term Mental and Behavioral Outcomes (2019)

Fishing Households, Social Support, and Depression after the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill (2019)

Oil Spill Disruption and Problem Drinking: Assessing the Impact of Religious Context among Gulf Coast Residents (2019)

Persistent Risk‐Related Worry as a Function of Recalled Exposure to the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Prior Trauma (2019)

Reaching vulnerable populations in the disaster-prone US Gulf Coast: Communicating across the crisis lifecycle (2019)

Research Tools

Database of Literature on Oil Spills and Public Health (2019)

Survey of Trauma, Resilience, and Opportunity Among Neighborhoods in the Gulf (STRONG) Codebook

Survey of Trauma, Resilience, and Opportunity Among Neighborhoods in the Gulf (STRONG) Data