Health and social impacts of a flood disaster: responding to needs and implications for practice

Carroll, Bob, Balogh, Ruth, Morbey, Hazel and Araoz, Gonzalo (2010) Health and social impacts of a flood disaster: responding to needs and implications for practice. Disasters, 34 (4). pp. 1045-1063.

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Abstract

Carlisle in northwest England suffered its worse floods for more than 180 years in 2005. A study, reported here, was undertaken to assess the health and social impacts of these floods via in-depth, taped individual and focus-group interviews with people whose homes had been flooded and with agency workers who helped them. Respondents spoke of physical health ailments, psychological stress, water health-and-safety issues related to the floods, and disputes with insurance and construction companies, which they felt had caused and exacerbated psychological health problems. Support workers also suffered from psychological stress. Furthermore, it was found that people had low expectations of a flood and were not prepared. The findings are presented in five sections covering flood risk awareness, water contamination issues, physical health, mental health, and impact on frontline support workers. The discussion focuses on the implications of the findings for policy and practice vis-à-vis psychological health provision, contamination issues, training and support for frontline support workers, matters relating to restoration, and preparation for flooding.

Item Type:	Article
Journal / Publication Title:	Disasters
Publisher:	Wiley
ISSN:	1467-7717
Departments:	Institute of Health > Social Work, Children and Families Centre for Research in Health and Society (CRIHS)
Additional Information:	Bob Carroll Research Fellow, Ruth Balogh Head, Hazel Morbey Researcher, and Gonzalo Araoz Research Fellow, Centre for Health Research and Practice Development, University of Cumbria, UK.
Depositing User:	Anna Lupton
Date Deposited:	30 Jan 2023 10:24
Last Modified:	29 Jan 2024 11:06
URI:	https://insight.cumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/6840

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