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Hurricane Maria, personal and collective suffering, and psychosocial support as a cross-cutting intervention

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 December 2017

Joseph O. Prewitt Diaz
Joseph O. Prewitt Diaz*
Affiliation:
Chief Executive Officer, Center for Psychosocial Support Solutions, Alexandria, VA 22310
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Abstract

Here we discuss the role of psychosocial support activities in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico. We report comments from 630 survivors from 22 towns. The focus is given to reactions, risk factors and resilience. The responses of the survivors were divided into individual and community losses. We propose that the response to such a catastrophic event was psychosocial and give suggestions for psychosocial support during future disaster responses.

Keywords

Hurricane Mariacollective sufferingpsychosocial support
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Tropical Psychology , Volume 7 , 2017 , e5
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2017 

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