Modeling the Protective Effect of Spirituality in Disaster Recovery

Inter-American Ctr/Public Health Improve, Christiansted VI

Investigators

Abstract

Project Summary Recent devastation caused by hurricanes Irma and Maria in Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands (USVI), has raised concern about the potential short-term and long-term impact of disaster-related stress in those US territories. Spirituality is one psychosocial factor that has been shown to moderate the relationship between psychosocial stress and metabolic risk factors among non-Hispanic blacks living in the USVI. A clearer understanding of if and how spirituality attenuates the association of disaster-related stress to physiological risk factors among non-Hispanic black residents would be useful to governmental and community-based organizations in the USVI that design and provide intervention services to improve coping skills, coping self-efficacy and resilience in the aftermath of hurricane disasters. This research project examines potential pathways through which spirituality might attenuate the association of disaster-related stress to stress-associated metabolic risk factors.