While much attention on large-scale disasters like massive hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, and wildfire focuses on the dynamics of the catastrophe and the magnitude of its adverse impacts, scholarly attention also has been given to the processes through which people recover from the devastations associated with these traumatic events. A spatial variant of the "conservation of resources" (COR) stress model provides a suitable theoretical frame to investigate the geography of recovery in a post-disaster landscape. This theory holds that the loss of social (networks/neighborhood) and personal (possessions, emotions) aspects of life can result in psychopathology among affected residents unless the effects are modified by different coping strategies and eventually by the return to normalcy. Building on two years of experience in studying the recovery of New Orleans to the ravages of Hurricane Katrina, the investigators of this research project will use a Small Grant for Exploratory Research to collect geographic data on neighborhood recovery over a series of time periods in San Diego County neighborhoods affected by the destructive wildfires of October 2007. The investigators will adapt a spatial video acquisition system (SVAS) first developed in collaboration with the National Center for Geocomputation (NCG) in Ireland for use in New Orleans to monitor the recovery of about 8,500 properties in five areas that were significantly impacted by the wildfires. The system, which consists of two video cameras mounted to either side of a vehicle, with the audio track recording a perpetual GPS signal, will be used at roughly three-month intervals for a year following the fires to gather critical data that can then be analyzed to determine the form and character of recovery in the different neighborhoods. These data will be analyzed with respect to data on the socioeconomic characteristics of the neighborhoods as well as other variables to analyze the spatial patterns of post-disaster recovery and to assess the impact of recovery efforts on the psychopathology of residents.
The project will gather critical data that will enable these and other researchers to assess a wide range of questions associated with the dynamics of post-disaster recovery. These investigators will use the data to test hypotheses associated with post-disaster psychopathology, thereby advancing theoretical understandings regarding geographic factors that may affect the longer-term mental health of residents adversely affected by major disasters. The project will have direct practical benefits for public health officials seeking better understanding of where critical facilities might be placed, and the insights and data from this project will have utility in other settings, thereby providing new information that might aid future post-disaster recovery efforts. The project will also aid in the refinement of new methods for gathering consistent data regarding post-disaster recovery over longer time periods.
