Brian Houston, co-director of the Disaster and Community Crisis Center at the University of Missouri, speaks about the impact of trauma on communities at "Trauma Journalism: Training for Educators" on Oct. 16, 2015. This two-day conference at the Reynolds Journalism Institute focused on teaching journalism educators about how to prepare students for the impact of trauma on individuals — including themselves — and communities, how to build resilience through reporting, and provide hands-on help in creating units or standalone courses on trauma.

1. DISASTER AND COMMUNITY CRISIS CENTER UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI
Impact of Trauma on Communities:
Disasters and Crises
J. Brian Houston

2. Today
• Disasters/Crises and Effects
• Disaster Journalism
• Resilience

3. dcc.missouri.edu

4. What is a Disaster?
A potentially traumatic event that
is collectively experienced, has an
acute onset, and is time-
delimited
-McFarlane and Norris, 2006

5. A severe disruption,
ecological and
psychosocial, which
greatly exceeds the
coping capacity
of the altered
community.
-World Health Organization
What is a Disaster?

6. Disaster Typology
Natural
“Acts of God”
• Hurricane
• Tornado
• Flood
• Earthquake
• Volcano
• Landslide
• Blizzard
• Drought
Man-made
Non-intentional
• Industrial accident
• Transportation accident
• Environmental destruction
Intentional
• Mass shooting
• Terrorism

7. A time of intense difficulty, trouble, or dangerWhat is a Crisis?

8. Organizational Crisis
– (a) a threat to the organization,
(b) the element of surprise, and
(c) a short decision time.
• (Seeger, Sellnow, & Ulmer, 1998)

9. Community Crisis

10. Effects of Disaster

11. • Disasters can harm or injure people
Disaster Effects

12. • Disasters can harm or injure people
• Disasters can have economic effects
Disaster Effects

13. • Disasters can harm or injure people
• Disasters can have economic effects
• Disasters can have psychological effects on
people.
Disaster Effects

14. • Fear and anxiety
– Fear of death or injury
– Fear of losing significant others
– Fear of further harm
– Anxious apprehension about the recovery process
• Dreading future events
(e.g., medical procedures)
– Separation anxiety
– Phobic reactions
• Related and unrelated issues
Psychological Effects of Disaster

15. • Sadness
– Related to losses
– Empathic sorrow
• Grief
– Basic grief over losses
• Gradually subsides and recycles
– Complicated grief
• Inconsolable over an extended period
– Traumatic Grief
• Related to traumatic loss
• Blended with trauma symptoms
Psychological Effects of Disaster

16. • Anger
– Toward “culpable” individuals or groups
• Terrorists, arsonists, criminals, etc.
• Muslims, immigrants, outsiders, etc.
– Toward ineffectual protective agents
• Police, military, firefighters, etc.
– Toward ineffectual relief agents
• FEMA, Red Cross
• Medical personnel
• Government and politicians
Psychological Effects of Disaster

17. • Guilt
– Survivor guilt
– Actual culpability for an event
– Imagined culpability for an event
• Regret
– Wishing to have acted differently
Psychological Effects of Disaster

18. • Changes in behavior
– Troubles around sleep
• Difficulty getting to sleep or staying asleep
• Nighttime fears, Nightmares
– Irritability
– Impulsiveness
– Somatic complaints
• Stomach aches
– Increase substance use
Psychological Effects of Disaster

20. • PTSD
• Depression

21. Media and social media can expand number of
people affected by a disaster.
Psychological Effects of Disaster

23. Phases of a Disaster
PRE-EVENT
(Prepare)
EVENT
(Response)
POST-EVENT
(Recover)
DISASTER

25. PERSON
CHARACTERISTICS
Demographics
Pre existing disorder
Prior trauma
FAMILY AND
SOCIAL FACTORS
Family and
Social Support
DISASTER EXPOSURE
Objective characteristics
Subjective reaction
OUTCOMES
PTSD
Anxiety
Depression
Substance Use
Functioning

26. 26
• “What average citizens and officials expect about
disasters, what they come to know of ongoing
disasters, and what they learn from disasters that have
occurred, are primarily although not exclusively
learned from mass media accounts.”
– (Quarantelli, 1991)
Disaster Journalism

27. 27
News coverage of natural and manmade
disasters captures the American public’s
attention more than any other issue. (Pew Research Center 2007, 2010)

28. • What do you think the role of journalism is in
relation to a community disaster?
Disaster Journalism

29. • Material or physical property
Resilience

32. • Can also apply to humans and human systems
Resilience

33. • The ability to “bounce back” after an adverse event
Resilience

34. Individual
– Child/youth
– Adult
Family
Campus
Community
Social
Regional
National
Global
Levels of Human Resilience

35. “Bounce FORWARD”
Norris et al., 2008

36. Bonanno & Diminich, 2013

37. “Emerges from collective activity in which individuals join together in
efforts that foster response and recovery for the whole”
– (Pfefferbaum & Klomp, 2013)
Community Resilience

38. Not a static end-state; a "network of adaptive capacities (resources with
dynamic attributes)” that allows a community to recover
– (Norris et al., 2008)
Community Resilience

39. Norris et al., 2008

40. Houston et al., 2015