Since the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010, the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University has conducted several studies to track the disaster’s health and social impact on the highly affected regions of the Gulf Coast. In 2014, the team returned to Louisiana to collect data as part of the Gulf Coast Population Impact (GCPI) study and found that the physical and mental health distress four years after the spill still persisted.
To continue assessing the impact of the oil spill on families and their children, the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) awarded a grant to Louisiana State University, working in partnership with the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University. The “Understanding Resilience Attributes for Children, Youth, and Communities in the Wake of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill” (RCYC) study used a combination of in-person surveys, focus groups, and social media with time points in 2014, 2016, and 2018 to create a longitudinal dataset. The study findings will help to see if there is evidence that health impacts on children and their families are getting better, worse, or staying the same as years go by. The results of this study may additionally help identify the most beneficial services and support to affected Gulf households and communities. Watch a Q&A here.
This project is no longer active.
Understand the public health and social impacts of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill with a focus on children and their families.
Identify attributes of children and families associated with resilience to negative disaster impacts, as well as attributes of children and families associated with vulnerability to negative disaster impacts.
Build a three wave panel dataset that allows for the assessment of within-unit change related to impacts, resilience, and vulnerability.
Train graduate students in disaster resilience research to help build the next generation of scholars dedicated to these issues.
Disseminate information generated from this project with the aim of promoting ways to foster disaster resilience and mitigating vulnerability.
