Project 2: GCAFH

Gulf Coast Child and Family Health Study (GCAFH)

Lead: David Abramson, Ph.D.

GCAFH is a longitudinal study of families that had been displaced or greatly impacted by Hurricane Katrina. Starting in 2006, a random sample of 1,079 households in Louisiana and Mississippi was drawn from FEMA lists of congregate settings and census blocks listed on a FEMA damage assessment database as having suffered moderate, comprehensive or catastrophic damage. The study included a wide range of outcome measures of recovery as well as potential influences on their trajectories of recovery, such as economic status and social ties. Three follow-up rounds of data collection were conducted since the baseline interview, at 23, 36, and 54 months after the hurricane. Earlier research based on these data has expanded what we know about how severely-affected households recover in the short-and medium term post-disaster; and has provided the basic tools for developing a generalizable model of post-disaster recovery that will be expanded and applied to our other two cohorts. The study includes a new wave of data collection for GCAFH that will help to measure and understand long term trajectories of and differentials in recovery for this cohort as well as for the Program’s other two cohorts.

Further information about the project can be found here: https://ncdp.columbia.edu/microsite-page/g-cafh/

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