Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-vfjqv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T16:50:49.496Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

34 - Methodological Challenges in Studying the Mental Health Consequences of Disasters

from Part Seven - Questions and Directions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 May 2010

Yuval Neria
Affiliation:
Columbia University, New York
Sandro Galea
Affiliation:
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Fran H. Norris
Affiliation:
Dartmouth Medical School, New Hampshire
Get access

Summary

This chapter discusses the methodological challenges that researchers face when designing, implementing, and analyzing studies aimed at understanding the mental health consequences of disasters. There are four key logistical challenges faced by postdisaster researchers: organizing the research plan, organizing the research team, establishing relationships with the local community, and obtaining funding and approvals. It is the central goal of all human-based research to clearly identify a target population and to sample persons from that population as effectively as possible. This brings up one of the key challenges particular to postdisaster research design: defining the population of interest and finding these persons in a postdisaster circumstance. Two study designs, which include case-control and experimental, are seldom used in postdisaster research. The chapter considers three key areas of measurement challenges in the field: measurement of disaster exposure, measurement of relevant covariates, and measurement of the health indicators of interest.
Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×