African Americans' decisions not to evacuate New Orleans before Hurricane Katrina: a qualitative study.
OBJECTIVE
We examined the psychosocial and personal factors that influenced African Americans' decision not to evacuate New Orleans, La, before Hurricane Katrina's landfall.


METHODS
We conducted 6 focus groups with 53 African Americans from New Orleans who were evacuated to Columbia, SC, within 2 months of Hurricane Katrina.


RESULTS
The major themes identified related to participants' decision to not evacuate were as follows: (1) perceived susceptability, including optimism about the outcome because of riding out past hurricanes at home and religious faith; (2) perceived severity of the hurricane because of inconsistent evacuation orders; (3) barriers because of financial constraints and neighborhood crime; and (4) perceived racism and inequities.


CONCLUSIONS
Federal, state, and local government disaster preparedness plans should specify criteria for timely evacuation orders, needed resources, and their allocation (including a decentralized distribution system for cash or vouchers for gas and incidentals during evacuation) and culturally sensitive logistic planning for the evacuation of minority, low-income, and underserved communities. Perceptions of racism and inequities warrant further investigation.
Elder
Keith
K
Department of Health Services Policy and Management, Arnold School of Public Health, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC 29208, USA. kelder@gwm.sc.edu
Xirasagar
Sudha
S
Miller
Nancy
N
Bowen
Shelly Ann
SA
Glover
Saundra
S
Piper
Crystal
C
D000328:Adult; D001741:Black or African American / Q000523:psychology*; D003657:Decision Making; D004190:Disasters; D005260:Female; D017144:Focus Groups; D006801:Humans; D008145:Louisiana; D008297:Male; D012036:Refugees / Q000523:psychology*; D012307:Risk Factors; D013022:South Carolina; D014505:Urban Population