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Author Spotlight: Unveiling Mechanisms of Stress Resilience - Significant Findings, Advancements, and Future Research
Published on: December 15, 2023
The Impact of Natural Disasters on Youth: A Focus on Emerging Research beyond Internalizing Disorders
Shannon Self-Brown1, Betty Lai2, Alexandria Patterson2
1School of Public Health, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA, 30303, USA. sselfbrown@gsu.edu.
Purpose Of Review:
This paper reviews youth outcomes following exposure to natural disaster, with a focus on three relatively understudied outcomes: externalizing behavior problems, physical health, and posttraumatic growth. Recent, high-impact studies focusing on each outcome are summarized.
Recent Findings:
Studies highlighted in this review utilize innovative and comprehensive approaches to improve our current understanding of youth broad-based physical and mental health outcomes beyond PTSD. The review concludes with recommendations to advance the field of youth disaster research by exploring how disasters may impact children across multiple domains, as well as using cutting edge ecobiological approaches and advanced modeling strategies to better understand how youth adjust and thrive following natural disaster.
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