Disaster mental health research: Exposure, impact, and response

INTRODUCTION Disasters occur frequently, sometimes in multiple locations at the same time, and although they vary in terms of type, impact, and their consequences, they are oft en life changing for large numbers of people. Although disaster forecasting has improved in recent decades, many disasters remain unforeseen, and even more disasters continue to exceed the response capacities of the communities that they affect. A number of large-scale human-made and natural disasters during the past decade have resulted in considerable popular and academic attention being paid to population effects of disasters, particularly in terms of mental health effects. Among these, the Marmara Earthquake in August 1999; the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington, DC; the March 11, 2004, train bombings in Madrid; the London terrorist attacks of July 7, 2005; and Hurricane Katrina in August 2005 all have been studied by several teams of scientists and clinicians and have resulted in a rapidly growing body of knowledge about the mental health consequences of such events. Building on the work presented in recent volumes in the fi eld (Cameron, Watson, & Friedman, 2006; Neria, Gross, Marshall, & Susser, 2006 ; Norris, Galea, Friedman, & Watson, 2006; Ursano, Fullerton, Weisaeth, & Raphael, 2007), the goal of this book is to address crucial gaps in our knowledge by reviewing and synthesizing the existing literature on the mental health consequences of disasters, evaluating strengths and shortcomings of past and current methodologies, and suggesting a comprehensive overview of future directions for improved research about the mental health consequences of disasters.