A group of Dartmouth researchers plan to evaluate the effectiveness of psychological therapy and provide counseling for distressed victims of Hurricane Ike on a trip to Galveston, Texas next month. The Dartmouth team is part of the National Center for Disaster Mental Health Research, a consortium of five institutions formed last year to study various aspects of psychological health following a disaster.
Members of the consortium developed a research plan and tools throughout 2007 and 2008 in order to begin the investigation immediately following the next natural disaster. The project will use innovative methods, such as surveys specific to certain demographics, and Internet-based tools to educate participants on common reactions to natural disasters in order to better help victims recover.
According to several leaders of the research, there have previously been few field studies regarding early phases of mental health following a natural disaster due to lack of funding and planning delays.
"This project is unique because we are doing disaster research that was planned -- the [National Institutes of Health] funded the center to prepare to do this research before the disaster occurred," said Kathy Sherrieb, a psychiatry research professor at Dartmouth Medical School and a member of the Dartmouth team heading to Galveston.
The researchers hope to examine how a variety of factors influence the degree to which disaster victims are able to recover. Dartmouth scientists are most interested in changes in victims' mental health over time, and discovering the best ways to provide treatment, according to Sherrieb.
"This is a longitudinal study -- we'll interview participants in Galveston Bay at three different times," Sherrieb said. "We'll track them starting at two months, then four and then 14 months."
Dartmouth researchers have also developed an intervention plan called "cognitive behavioral therapy for post-disaster distress" for those most affected by the hurricane. Researchers will train local therapists to deliver the interventions, and a member of the Dartmouth team will supervise the therapy and gauge its effectiveness, while considering possible improvements.
Members of the research team chose victims of Hurricane Ike as research subjects because of the storm's severe effects on those living on the coast of Texas.
"There was serious property damage, many people were displaced and many residents' lives are likely to be disrupted for quite some time," Fran Norris, DMS research professor and leader of the Dartmouth research team, said in a press release. "There was mixed response to pre-event advisories to evacuate, meaning that many people were also exposed to the immediate impacts of the hurricane. These are the types of disasters that raise the most questions about the range of effects and appropriate responses."
Dartmouth Medical School will fund the project using $3.89 million awarded by the National Institutes of Health over five years. The award was also granted to the other universities in the consortium -- the University of Michigan, the Medical University of South Carolina, Yale University and the University of Oklahoma -- all of which are using the money to study different aspects of post-disaster mental health.
The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center recently became the sixth member of the consortium to provide resources, facilities and connections locally.
"[They] were brought into the consortium after the disaster was defined," Sherrieb said. "They had an experienced disaster researcher at that site, and we wanted an investigator on the project who would know the region and the people."
Members of NCDMHR would like to use similar research methods to study future natural disasters and use their results to educate new researchers for "disaster mental health research," according to Sherrieb.
