The proposed study aims to explore the impact of long term trauma on health and mental health of elderly survivors of the Holocaust. The study will compare groups of survisors in the United States and Israel, respectively, with matched comparison groups who did not suffer the trauma of the Holocaust. The study will consider a conceptual model for understanding post traumatic outcomes in late life as a function of stress history and recent life events. The mediating roles of social supports and coping strategies in effecting outcomes will also be explored. Stress history, coping history and history of social supports will be obtained to understand experiences of respondents during wartime years, the postwar period and at the present time as older adults. Individual interviews will be conducted with 150 survivors in the United States and l50 in Israel and with two comparison groups comprised of 150 subjects each. Multivariate analyses will be conducted to explore the applicability of a general model of stress-adaptation and outcomes for persons who experienced extreme stress and for nonstressed groups. Qualitative data will also be obtained about the factors which enabled some survivors to adapt successfully subsequent to extreme stress.
