This work seeks to examine people's psychological and physiological reactions to the extreme stress produced by a recent natural disaster, the Bay Area earthquake of 17 October 1989. The PI has developed a theory of inhibition and confrontation with stressors, which holds that when people attempt to suppress reactions to stressful events, when they refuse to talk about the event, consciously try to stop thinking about it, etc., they put themselves at risk for later, stress related reactions, which can include the intrusion of debilitating thoughts, autonomic nervous system activity and, over time, an increase in health problems. In the first study, a sample of Bay Area residents will be surveyed repeatedly over the course of a year (via telephone), and sequential measures of their reaction to the earthquake will be taken. It is predicted that people will differ in the ways they inhibit, or confront, the disaster, and these reactions, in turn, will have implications for later physical health status. In addition the researchers will interview a subsample of the telephone survey respondents, and take a series of noninvasive physiological measures (e.g., blood pressure), to determine potential relationships between reactions to the earthquake (as evidenced on the survey questionnaire) and physiological status. Also, approximately 700 Bay Area residents (and a comparison group of 350 Dallas, TX, residents) will be surveyed over the course of the coming year to determine possible changes in people's reactions to, and perceptions of, the disaster; comparison of these responses with those of the repeatedly measured group will be made to determine the effects of multiple testing. In addition, health status measures also will be taken. Finally, various college and non-college groups who differ in terms of their plans to stay or quit the Bay Area also will be interviewed, and various health status measures will be applied. The research will attempt to show that the form of people's reaction to a disaster, and possibly the reactions they exhibit over a period of time following the disaster, will have implications for their psychological and physical health. The PI's use of the Bay Area disaster as a natural manipulation is a smart and opportunistic attempt to make a positive gain from a terrible catastrophe. A rapid NSF response to this request would have been very difficult without the SGER program. For this reason alone, the SGER initiative is to be applauded.
