The proposed study is a 17 year followup of 207 young adults who were survivors of the Buffalo Creek, West Virginia dam collapse/flood of 1972. An extensive data base is already available on these children (ages 2-15) who were involved in a lawsuit seeking damages 2 years after the flood, and who were described in earlier work by this research team. Data are also available on additional children from a subsequent lawsuit if necessary. Additional data from the earlier reports will be gleaned, including diagnoses of post traumatic stress disorder. Data to be collected include diagnostic information, symptom distress, levels of functioning, developmental progress, and personality characteristics. Medical records will be reviewed for the presence of physical indicators of stress including hypertension and peptic ulcers, and school records will provide data on academic achievement and early functioning. The self- report instruments will also be collected from 120 subjects in a neighboring community not exposed to the disaster. Buffalo Creek subjects will be compared to the non-exposed subjects on all of the self-report instruments to determine whether Buffalo Creek scores are elevated on these measures. Within the followup sample at Buffalo Creek, we will examine the extent to which individual survivor experiences are predictive of level and type of psychopathology and health status. We are particularly interested in the extent to which age mediates the relationship between stressors experienced and long-term outcome, and the extent to which age at the time of the disaster influenced the nature, severity and specificity of the later response. Presence of a PTSD syndrome in the children and young adults will be ascertained, as well as the relationship between the current diagnosis and age at the time of the disaster. The mediating influence of parental psychopathology 2 years post flood, as well as aspects of the recovery environment of long- term adaptation, will also be examined. The latter stages of the project will include model building and testing based on the model proposed for the present study.
| Honig, R G; Grace, M C; Lindy, J D et al. (1993) Portraits of survival. A twenty-year follow-up of the children of Buffalo Creek. Psychoanal Study Child 48:327-55 |
| Green, B L; Korol, M; Grace, M C et al. (1991) Children and disaster: age, gender, and parental effects on PTSD symptoms. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry 30:945-51 |
