by Playfuls Staff |
17th August 2006
University of Massachusetts-Boston researchers are examining the effect of Hurricane Katrina's devastation of the Gulf Coast one year later. [more]
The research project includes an examination of how low-income parents cope with the effects of Katrina; the relationship between race, class and the area's devastation; and the realities for refugees and Vietnamese communities trying to rebuild.
Psychologist Jean Rhodes says she's found poor, single women of color experience the worst outcomes in the wake of natural disasters. Rhodes is assessing Katrina's effect on 500 low-income parents from New Orleans -- a group made largely of single, African-American women. That study is being conducted with researchers from Princeton and Harvard universities.
Professor Barbara Lewis of the William Monroe Trotter Institute for the Study of Black Culture notes three-quarters of pre-Katrina New Orleans residents are still unable to return to the city. Lewis says such a situation would not be tolerated in Boston, Los Angeles or New York, and is directly related to issues of race and class.
Professor Peter Kiang, director of the Asian American Studies Program, is reviewing the survival skills of members of the Gulf Coast's Vietnamese refugee communities.
© 2006 UPI
