Social group connections support mental health following wildfire

As environmental disasters become more common and severe due to climate change, there is a growing need for strategies to bolster recovery that are proactive, cost-effective, and which mobilise community resources.

We propose that building social group connections is a particularly promising strategy for supporting mental health in communities affected by environmental disasters.

We tested the social identity model of identity change in a disaster context among 627 people substantially affected by the 2019-2020 Australian fires.

We found high levels of post-traumatic stress, strongly related to severity of disaster exposure, but also evidence of psychological resilience. Distress and resilience were weakly positively correlated. Having stronger social group connections pre-disaster was associated with less distress and more resilience 12-18 months after the disaster, via three pathways: greater social identification with the disaster-affected community, greater continuity of social group ties, and greater formation of new social group ties. New group ties were a mixed blessing, positively predicting both resilience and distress.

We conclude that investment in social resources is key to supporting mental health outcomes, not just reactively in the aftermath of disasters, but also proactively in communities most at risk.