title: School and Community Influences on the Long Term Post-Disaster Recovery of Children and Youth Following Hurricane Georges.
abstract: Disasters affect the school and community microsystems in which children and youth recover. This study explored characteristics of theschool(school violence, teachers' attitudes) andcommunity microsystem(neighborhood climate, neighborhood monitoring, community violence) that may affect the disaster exposure and internalizing psychopathology relationship in children and youth 12-27 months after Hurricane Georges hit Puerto Rico. A representative sample (N=1,637) of caregivers and children/youth completed structured interviews in Spanish. Controlling for gender and perception of poverty, for children (age 6-10 years), hurricane exposure increased risk for internalizing psychopathology, but the school and community variables did not have an influence. For all youth (age 11-17 years), witnessing community violence and poor teacher attitudes increased the risk of psychopathology. In addition, neighborhood climate and school violence were moderators. For non-exposed youth, poor neighborhood climate and perceiving greater school violence increased the risk of internalizing psychopathology, whereas for exposed youth it did not.
authors.affiliation: Gevirtz Graduate School of Education, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA 93106-9490, (805) 893-5419; (805) 893-7521 (fax).
authors.forename: Erika
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Felix
authors.affiliation: Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, Seoul, Korea.
authors.forename: Sukkyung
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: You
authors.affiliation: Behavioral Sciences Research Institute, University of Puerto Rico, Medical Sciences Campus, PO Box 365067, San Juan, Puerto Rico 00936-5067, 787 754-8624 fax 787 767-5959.
authors.forename: Glorisa
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Canino
keywords: Community Microsystem; Disasters; Psychopathology; School Microsystem