While illness has been identified as a risk factor for negative psychological outcomes attendant on disaster, and family support has been identified as a stress buffer since the very earliest researches on war, little is known about the converse - the effect of disaster and its psychological aftermath on civilian health behavior, and the family's role in moderating that effect. Sixty demographically matched families from a high-HIV seroprevalence neighborhood highly affected by the World Trade disaster can be recruited from the rosters of two projects. Families will differ in parent-child communication training and whether a parent is HIV+ or no immediate household family member has HIV. The current research will 1) use elicitation techniques to define the HIV- and disaster-related concerns of HIV-infected and HIV-affected parents and children retrospectively for the two months post disaster and at six months post-disaster; 2) assess the moderating effects of family communication style, of the level of exposure to disaster, and of pre-existing community concerns (e.g., exposure to community violence, HIV-related worry or bereavement) to anxiety, depression, and PTSD for parents and youth, and reported sexual and drug risk behaviors six months post-disaster for 60 youth; 3) compare the appraisal, coping, HIV and mental health behavior of 60 LES parent-child pairs in three demographically-matched groups retrospectively for the two months post-disaster, and at six months post-disaster; and 4) disseminate research summary findings to local youth and HIV service providers, school guidance counselors and social workers, city council representatives, and parents and children through timely fact sheets and forums, conducting a brief evaluation of this dissemination. Respondents will be interviewed on one occasion approximately six months post-disaster, giving concurrent and retrospective information about their reactions to disaster. Qualitative and quantitative analysis will be performed, content and contingency analysis in the former case, and regression and ANOVA/ANCOVA in the latter. Research will be guided by Tomkin's theories on the amplification of negative emotion.
| Krauss, Beatrice J; O'Day, Joanne; Godfrey, Christopher et al. (2006) Who wins in the status games? Violence, sexual violence, and an emerging single standard among adolescent women. Ann N Y Acad Sci 1087:56-73 |
