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- Title
Ripples of Recovery and Resilience: Tracking the Effects of the Canterbury Earthquakes on Older New Zealanders.
- Authors
Alpass, Fiona; Keeling, Sally; Stevenson, Brendan; Allen, Joanne; Stephens, Christine
- Abstract
Participants from the longitudinal Health, Work and Retirement study of older New Zealanders (N=1,970), were surveyed in 2010, before the 2010 and 2011 Canterbury earthquake events, and again in 2012 and 2014. A variety of direct and indirect effects of the earthquakes were reported by older people across all of New Zealand and these persisted over three years. Although over a quarter of the study’s participants reported effects of the earthquakes, these effects reduced with both physical and temporal distance from the earthquake events. Provision of social support to family and friends was widely reported, but decreased over time. Emotional and economic impacts were more likely to be reported in the longer term. After taking into account general changes in the health and wellbeing of older people over time, there was no effect of exposure to earthquake effects on health. However, there was a short term benefit on emotional loneliness for those affected by the earthquakes, with those who had experienced the earthquakes more likely to report reduced loneliness in 2012. This study is a reminder that through family and social connectedness, older people in New Zealand can be part of post-disaster recovery and resilience, in ways that are not simply related to immediate exposure.
- Subjects
NEW Zealand; CONVALESCENCE; PUBLIC health; SOCIOECONOMIC factors; LONELINESS; NATURAL disasters; PSYCHOLOGICAL resilience
- Publication
Australasian Journal of Disaster & Trauma Studies, 2016, Vol 20, Issue 2, p117
- ISSN
1174-4707
- Publication type
Article