Weighing the Costs of Disaster: Consequences Risks and Resilience in Individuals Families and Communities

Summary
Disasters typically strike quickly and cause great harm.
Unfortunately, because of the spontaneous and chaotic nature
of disasters, the psychological consequences have proved
exceedingly difficult to assess. Published reports have often
overestimated a disaster’s psychological cost to survivors, suggesting, for example, that many if not most survivors will
develop posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD); at the same time,
these reports have underestimated the scope of the disaster’s
broader impact in other domains. We argue that such ambiguities can be attributed to methodological limitations. When we
focus on only the most scientifically sound research—studies
that use prospective designs or include multivariate analyses
of predictor and outcome measures—relatively clear conclusions about the psychological parameters of disasters emerge.
We summarize the major aspects of these conclusions in five key
points and close with a brief review of possible implications
these points suggest for disaster intervention