Analyzing a Neighborhood Effect on Post-Katrina Recovery: Does a Community's Cohesion and Control Matter?

A socio-ecological model of post-disaster recovery would suggest that a number of factors, operating at multiple social levels, may be associated with an individual and household's recovery after a catastrophe. Factors hypothesized to be correlated with accelerated recovery include those operating at an individual level, such as predisposing characteristics as age, gender, race/ethnicity, and education, as well as such psychological attributes as self-efficacy and locus of control. Interactional factors, such as formal and informal social support, may also mediate recovery. Furthermore, following the work of Sampson and Raudenbush in Chicago, there may be significant neighborhood effects. These could include such factors as social control and cohesion, the physical condition of a neighborhood, and the collective status of housing recovery. Using data from the longitudinal Gulf Coast Child & Family Health Study, which includes four annual waves of data from a randomly sampled cohort of 1,079 households in Louisiana and Mississippi post-Katrina, and a supplemental neighborhood survey of objective measures of physical condition and recovery collected at respondents' current and pre-Katrina addresses, the authors analyzed the independent effect of neighborhood factors on self-reported recovery, controlling for the other potential factors noted above. Moreover, self-reported and objective measures of neighborhood cohesion and conditions were analyzed for correlation, and both were entered into distinct regression models. Recovery is a complex and dynamic process, and understanding the relative contribution of these multiple factors can assist policy-makers, local officials, and urban planners in designing more effective recovery policies.