Evacuation status, age, income, and psychological resilience as predictors of stress among Hurricane Katrina survivors

Natural and technological disasters are occurring more frequently and with increased severity in the United States and around the world. Each year thousands of individuals are killed by disasters; thousands more survive and are left to continue despite the magnitude of loss and devastation caused by disasters. Major disasters have been shown to have a negative impact on the psychological and mental health of survivors in the years following the disaster (Kim, Plumb, Gredig, Rankin, and Taylor, 2008). The current study is an investigation of the factors that affected and continue to affect the survivors of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans four years after the disaster. The study examines the variables of evacuation status, current age, current annual income post-Katrina, and psychological resilience as predictors of perceived psychological stress in African-American survivors of Hurricane Katrina, who returned and live in New Orleans, Louisiana/Orleans Parish in Louisiana four years after the disaster.;"The incorporated city limits of New Orleans are the same as the boundaries of Orleans Parish" (Encyclopedia Louisiana, 1998, p. 1). The terms New Orleans and Orleans parish are used interchangeably as evacuation status refers to the departure of Orleans Parish residents from the city of New Orleans before or after the mandatory evacuation order was issued relevant to Hurricane Katrina. The first-ever mandatory evacuation order was issued by New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin at 9:30 A.M. on August 28, 2005 (Drye, 2005), one day before Hurricane Katrina made landfall in New Orleans. According to the Greater New Orleans Community Data Center (GNOCDC, 2009), before Hurricane Katrina, specifically on July 01, 2005 Orleans parish had 455,056 inhabitants. After Katrina, Kammaerbauer (2008) reported that 80 percent of Orleans parish inhabitants evacuated the city preceding the Hurricane.;A snowball sample of 108 Hurricane Katrina survivors who evacuated New Orleans for the hurricane and returned to live in the city, was recruited to participate in this predictive correlational study design. The sample was divided into two groups based on evacuation before or after the mandatory evacuation order was issued. Group I (n = 65) was comprised of African- American Hurricane Katrina survivors that evacuated New Orleans before the mandatory evacuation order was issued. Group II (n = 43) included survivors that evacuated after the order was issued. The demographic variable age was not found to be a statistically significant predictor of psychological stress among the total group. Although not statistically significant, evacuation status was negatively correlated to income after Katrina (r = - .094, p = .385). Survivors that left before the mandatory order was issued had higher incomes than survivors who left after the order was issued. The variable stress was consistently negative across all other variables. Statistically significant negative correlations were found between stress and current annual income after Katrina (r = -.292, p = .006) and resilience and stress (r = -.264, p = .006). The correlations indicate study participants with lower levels of stress would tend to have higher incomes since Katrina and participants with high resilience tend to have low stress. Current annual income after Katrina was the best predictor of psychological stress among the total participant sample.