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Department of Sociology

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https://hdl.handle.net/10217/100508
These digital collections include theses, dissertations, faculty publications, and datasets from the Department of Sociology. Due to departmental name changes, materials from the following historical department are also included here: Sociology and Anthropology.

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Browsing Department of Sociology by Subject "adaptive capacity"

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    Cumulative disaster exposure and coping capacity of women and their children in southeast Louisiana
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2017) Mohammad, Lubna, author; Peek, Lori, advisor; Mahoney, Patrick, committee member; Lucas-Thompson, Rachel Graham, committee member
    Many studies have shown how cumulative disaster exposure and trauma can lead to a multitude of negative outcomes. As the risk of cumulative disaster exposure continues to increase because of climate change and population growth, this area of study is becoming increasingly important. This thesis is part of the Women and Their Children's Health (WaTCH) Study, which involves survey work with women and children affected by the 2010 Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. Specifically, the current study explores the experiences of nine mother-child pairs who reported in the WaTCH study that they had experienced three or more disasters that had a major impact on the child and the household. Open ended, inductive interviews were conducted with these mother-child pairs in order to understand how cumulative disaster exposures impact mothers and their children and what strategies were used to cope with these exposures. This thesis found that disaster experiences alone did not determine disaster coping and recovery, but rather it was how these exposures combined with secondary stressors, some of which were related to demographic variables, that influenced disaster outcomes. Single parent households, African Americans, and low-income families who experienced long, unstable displacement periods, material, social, and instrumental losses, and problems with school adjustment demonstrated how problems can pile up to slow or hinder current and future disaster coping and recovery. Alternatively, the families who had high incomes, fewer displacements, less material loss, and high levels of social support were able to recover more quickly and show some adaptive capacity in the face of disasters, growing more and more resilient with each disaster experience.