Disasters, psychological traumas, and religions: Resiliencies examined

This special section in Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy: "Religion and Spirituality in the Context of Disaster," demonstrates the heterogeneity and complexities of religion as a variable of psychological resilience in response to disaster. Research from hurricane, flood, and mass shooting disasters are reported. So too is the development of a new measure of disaster response. The section ends with a review of 51 empirical resilience studies of religion/spirituality and disaster. There are both ethnic and age differences in how salient a factor religion is after disasters. These papers demonstrate that to engage this complexity will require the expertise and effort-as with all cultural competence-to understand the "made meaning" of the lived experience of religion across one's life span. Religion is shown to be a robust objective for public health policy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).