title: Access, use and completion of a brief disaster mental health intervention among Hispanics, African-Americans and Whites affected by Hurricane Ike.
abstract: African-Americans and Hispanics are disproportionally affected by disasters. We evaluated differences in the use and completion of a web-based mental health intervention, Disaster Recovery Web (DRW), by White, African-American and Hispanic adults in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike. Approximately one year after the hurricane, a telephone survey was carried out with adults from Galveston and Chambers counties. A total of 1249 adults participated in the survey (80% White, 14% African-American and 6% Hispanic). Mental health and mental health service utilization were assessed. Whites were more likely to have previously used the Internet to obtain general health information than African-Americans or Hispanics (P < 0.001). A logistic regression was used to identify differences in the use of the Internet intervention after controlling for covariates. There were no differences in rates of non-use and dropout attrition between Whites, African-Americans and Hispanics. Thus the findings suggest that web-based mental health interventions can be used to reach African-American, Hispanic and White adults at similar rates after a disaster.
authors.affiliation: Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston SC 29425, USA. prima@musc.edu
authors.forename: Matthew
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Price
authors.forename: Tatiana M
authors.initials: TM
authors.lastname: Davidson
authors.forename: Jeannette O
authors.initials: JO
authors.lastname: Andrews
authors.forename: Kenneth J
authors.initials: KJ
authors.lastname: Ruggiero
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001741:Black or African American / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D055867:Cyclonic Storms; D004190:Disasters; D005006:Ethnicity / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005260:Female; D006297:Health Services Accessibility / Q000592:standards*; D006630:Hispanic or Latino / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet; D016015:Logistic Models; D008297:Male; D008605:Mental Health Services / Q000458:organization & administration / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D008875:Middle Aged; D014481:United States; D044465:White People / Q000706:statistics & numerical data