Environmental Disaster and Mental Health: Coping and Depression among Survivors of Multiple Disasters

Although previous studies have focused on various coping strategies and their relationships with mental health, limited attention has been given to exploring coping and depression among residents living in disaster-prone communities. The purpose of this study was to examine how various coping styles are related to depressive symptoms among residents of the Mississippi Gulf Coast who have survived multiple disasters. Specifically, this study aimed to analyze three methods of coping–positive reframe coping, help-seeking coping, and substance use coping–and their relationships to depressive symptoms. Because this geographic area is prone to a higher rate of disasters, it is imperative to examine the manner in which residents are coping with these stressful events. This analysis included a randomly selected sampling of 216 Mississippi Gulf Coast respondents who lived in the Gulf Coast area during both Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010. A hierarchical multiple regression analysis revealed that the coping variables and the demographic variables collectively explained 43 percent of the variance in depressive symptoms. For this sample, positive reframe coping was negatively associated with depressive symptoms, whereas substance use coping was positively associated and help-seeking coping was not significantly associated with depressive symptoms. Implications for these findings for social work practice at the micro, mezzo, and macro levels will be discussed.