Discussion

This study provides in-depth insights from community members and help providers in disaster-affected regions of Australia, regarding the compound impacts of the 2019/20 Black Summer bushfires and COVID-19 pandemic. It begins to address the general scarcity of qualitative evidence regarding the impacts of the pandemic^{Reference Zhao, Leach, Walsh, Batterham, Calear and Phillips3} and also contributes to an emerging body of research on the unique characteristics of compound disasters.^{Reference Leppold, Gibbs, Block, Reifels and Quinn9} This study also provides a unique contribution of gendered experiences of compound disasters, given that participants predominantly identified as female.

The first theme provided early accounts of post-disaster (and pre-pandemic) experiences, which referenced community members coming together after the bushfires but with growing recognition of mental health concerns and community tensions that emerged over time. Such accounts are consistent with observations made after previous bushfires that also described changing dynamics in which a shared focus on the disaster provides an initial sense of collective significance, which then gives way to community tensions that emerge over time.^{Reference Gordon23} These changes align with processes described after other disasters that reference both the mobilisation and deterioration of social support over time^{Reference Kaniasty and Norris24,Reference Kaniasty, De Terte, Guilaran and Bennett25} and are also reflected in conceptual accounts of community recovery that have been proposed in relation to such single disasters.²⁶ These suggest a U-shaped trajectory that often commences with a ‘honeymoon’ phase in the disaster's aftermath, reflecting a shared sense of survival and community engagement. This is followed by a downward trend characterised by growing frustration, loss of support and fragmentation, and a subsequent phase defined by the navigation of obstacles and an upward path towards reconstruction and recovery. This process is proposed to follow a timeline that often extends across a 1–3 year period, although research suggests that mental health impacts of major disasters may still be discernible 10 years afterwards.^{Reference Bryant, Gibbs, Gallagher, Pattison, Lusher and MacDougall7}

Findings from this study also provided accounts of how the pandemic had disrupted the aforementioned recovery processes and emphasised particular impacts on social connection and community engagement. The second theme identified that participants were often aware of the importance of community support following bushfires and recognised how social distancing and the closure of community services or spaces had reduced opportunities for connection. The third theme also described social impacts including interpersonal conflicts over vaccine attitudes, as well as divisions that reflected concerns about the spread of the pandemic from other communities. Such findings regarding adverse social and community impacts can be viewed in relation to broader literature indicating that although experiences of engaging support systems after disasters may be complex and sometimes negative,^{Reference Shang, Cowlishaw, Kaniasty, Ma and Forbes27} these networks can provide critical sources of practical and emotional support that minimise the mental health impacts of disaster-related trauma and adversity.^{Reference Iwasaki, Sawada and Aldrich28}

The view of social and community connection as a recovery resource is consistent with principles of community capitals frameworks, which emphasise the importance of social capital and use this term to describe interpersonal connections and traditions of trust and reciprocity among people and groups.^{Reference Gibbs, Blake, Campbell, Quinn, Johnston and Richardson29} Broader accounts also distinguish between bonding social capital, which refers to strong ties that exist within groups of family, kin and close friends, and bridging social capital, which reflects looser ties across larger networks of people that may be less similar in terms of personal characteristics and identities.^{Reference Nguyen-Trung, Forbes-Mewett and Arunachalam30} When viewed from this perspective, the current findings may suggest that a major impact of the pandemic was to reduce stocks of social capital in disaster-affected communities, including both bonding social capital (for example, resulting from social distancing and reduced opportunities to engage with close networks) and bridging social capital. The latter was inferred from descriptions of conflict and distrust across groups that were defined by emerging dimensions of identity that became salient during the pandemic, for example, reflecting attitudes towards and uptake of COVID-19 vaccines.

Community capitals frameworks may also provide a perspective on findings that highlight additional areas of compound impacts of disasters and the pandemic. For example, notions of built capital refer to physical infrastructure that may be damaged by disasters (e.g. homes, utilities) and typically comprises priority concerns for disaster recovery.^{Reference Gibbs, Blake, Campbell, Quinn, Johnston and Richardson29} Studies conducted after previous disasters have suggested that reestablishment and rebuilding activities are the most common stressors reported after disasters,^{Reference Harms, Gibbs, Ireton, MacDougall, Brady and Kosta8} and the current findings indicate that these processes were protracted by the pandemic, for example, owing to difficulties engaging builders and increasing building supply costs. Difficulties accessing housing may have been magnified by pre-existing housing shortages in some regions;^{Reference Phillips and Joseph31} these were identified as barriers to new help providers relocating to bushfire-affected communities and suggest interconnections with human capital in these regions. Human capital refers to the skills and abilities of people and communities that can be affected by disasters (for example, as people choose to move away rather than rebuild properties) and can encompass critical skill domains of healthcare and mental health. Findings of this study highlight that these stocks of human capital were already limited in rural and regional areas and had been further depleted by successive demands from disasters and the pandemic, as reflected by strong signs of exhaustion and burnout among help providers. This aligns with findings from recent surveys of mental health service providers in Australia, which have also identified escalating workforce pressures, personal impacts of disasters and the pandemic, and high levels of workforce instability.^{Reference Macleod, Curll, Walker, Reynolds, Lane and Galati32}

The current findings also identified impacts of administrative and bureaucratic systems on community members and help providers, including inflexible and single-disaster-specific policies for accessing financial support and requirements to recount experiences many times that were characterised as ‘re-traumatising’. This aligns with prior studies indicating that difficulties accessing financial assistance or compensation comprise major forms of secondary stressors,^{Reference Lock, Rubin, Murray, Rogers, Amlôt and Williams33,Reference Williams, Ntontis, Alfadhli, Drury and Amlôt34} and that key features of programme design (e.g. ease of access) and ways of delivering support are likely to influence the experiences of disaster survivors.^{Reference Shang, Cowlishaw, Kaniasty, Ma and Forbes27} They also resonate with broader literature indicating that many systems of service provision, including health services, can have embedded practices that can unintentionally harm clients with trauma histories and must be reconfigured to be ‘trauma-informed’.^{Reference Grossman, Cooper, Buxton, Hendrickson, Lewis-O'Connor and Stevens35} The findings from this study suggest that financial assistance programmes present similar risks of introducing stressors for communities that have been exposed to disasters and the pandemic, which may have been compounded given the range of disconnected support schemes that were available and administered by different state and federal government agencies.

Finally, the study also highlighted pre-existing mental health vulnerabilities and additional forms of trauma and adversity that intersected with disaster and pandemic impacts. At the broadest level, such findings signal that there will be unique experiences of compound disasters across individuals and among groups that are already marginalised and have reduced access to personal and social resources. Prior studies of multiple disasters have identified uniquely affected marginalised groups, including those reporting low educational attainment, financial hardship and temporary housing.^{Reference Leppold, Gibbs, Block, Reifels and Quinn9} The current findings suggest that these may also include individuals with pre-existing mental health problems and trauma histories and members of the LGBTQIA+ community, as well as women who may be exposed to gender-based experiences of family violence and employment instability. The latter should be considered in relation to prior studies that have indicated that gender-based violence may increase in the context of major disasters,^{Reference Molyneaux, Gibbs, Bryant, Humphreys, Hegarty and Kellett36} as such disasters can create new vulnerabilities and opportunities for men to use violence and controlling behaviours (for example, owing to insecure financial circumstances and temporary housing arrangements following the disaster).^{Reference Parkinson37} Relevant studies have also shown that Australian women (relative to men) experienced increased rates of job loss and unpaid work during the initial years of the pandemic;^{Reference Wood, Griffiths and Crowley38} this signals the importance of adopting gendered perspectives on disaster and pandemic impacts that recognise the intersecting forms of adversity (including precarious economic circumstances) faced by many women in disaster-affected communities.