Life Change in the Disaster Recovery Period

To supplement a substantial literature on the symptomatic consequences of disaster, this article focuses on the adaptational requirements experienced by disaster victims, operationalized as the stressful life events following a severe flood that occurred in 1984 in southeastern Kentucky. In this study of older adults, life events were analyzed at three levels of specificity: as an aggregate measure reflecting the total amount of changes without regard to content, as seven content-oriented categories (Household Disruption, Financial Disruption, Family Conflict, Social Disruption, Health Disruption, Bereavement, and Good Things For Self), and as 40 specific events. In analyses that controlled for subjects' preflood resources, mental health, and sociodemographic characteristics, differences between victims and nonvictims in the number and types of life events experienced were tested. Overall, the findings suggest that older flood victims are more likely than other older adults to experience social disruption, but not necessarily the other six categories of life events. Most specifically, victims were found to be more likely than nonvictims to have friends/neighbors move away and to have new family conflicts; victims were less likely than others to have children leave home.