Evacuation- and hurricane-related experiences, emotional distress, and their associations with mothers’ health risk behaviors.

Abstract

Objective: Extreme weather events pose major risks to human health and have a greater psychological impact on women and parents, but little is known about how they affect health risk behaviors. This study evaluated how disaster-related experiences before, during, and after Hurricane Irma were associated with mothers' health-risk behaviors, and the extent to which posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) and depressive symptoms potentially mediated these relationships. Method: Mothers (N = 534; 33% underrepresented minorities) residing in Southern Florida completed an online survey about their evacuation experiences before and hurricane experiences during and after Irma. Mothers also completed measures of PTSS, depressive symptoms, and health risk behaviors (i.e., substance use, sedentary behaviors, and difficulty falling or staying asleep). Confirmatory factor analysis assessed the fit of the health-risk behavior indicators on a latent factor. Structural equation modeling evaluated relationships between variables. Results: A one-factor model for health risk behaviors fit the data well. After controlling for income, loss and disruption after the storm and depressive symptoms were directly associated with mothers' health risk behaviors. Before-the-storm evacuation stressors, actual life-threatening events during the storm, and loss and disruption after the storm were related to mothers' PTSS and depressive symptoms and also associated with health risk behaviors indirectly via depressive symptoms. Conclusions: Stressful experiences before, during, and after hurricanes are associated with mothers' health-risk behaviors via postevent emotional distress. Health interventions should include strategies that help parents cope with the impact of extreme weather events, both before and after such events occur. Mothers' distress potentially could affect child health.

Climate change and extreme weather disasters: evacuation stress is associated with youths’ somatic complaints

“…Items from the Hurricane-Related Traumatic Experiences-II (HURTE-II; La Greca, 2017 ) assessed youths’ exposure to Hurricane Irma. The HURTE is a widely-used measure to assess hurricane exposure (e.g., Hensley and Varela, 2008 ; La Greca et al, 2010 , 2013a , b ; Lai et al, 2013 , 2014 ; Felix et al, 2016 ).…”

Impacts of household vulnerability on hurricane logistics evacuation under COVID-19: The case of U.S. Hampton Roads

“…In many approaches, the financial disposition of the household is associated with the ability of the household to either prepare for, weather, or recover from natural disasters, including storms and flooding (e.g., Ward and Shively, 2017 , Rufat et al, 2019 , Hamidi et al, 2020 , Hossain, 2015 ). In concert with this understanding, the measure of vulnerability applied in our study utilizes household income as a central element and then considers two additional elements (the presence of children Thompson et al, 2017 , La Greca et al, 2019 , La Greca et al, 2022 , Whitehead et al, 2000 and ADL adults ( Cherniack et al, 2008 , Van Willigen et al, 2002 , Fernandez et al, 2002 ) as either enhancing or diminishing the importance of household income in the propensity to evacuate.…”

Human Capital Dimensions Influencing Knowledge Hiding in the Public Sector: Evidence from Italy

“…(2019) analyzed the relationship between demographics and high-risk behaviour. Furthermore, LaGreca et al (2022) investigated mothers' health-risk behaviour, and other studies analyzed the gender differences in risky driving behaviour(Măirean and Diaconu-Gherasim 2021;Granie et al 2021). www.ejkm.com 17 ISSN 1479-4411…”