Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Faith, Crisis, Coping, And Meaning Making After Katrina: A Qualitative, Cross-Cohort Examination, Loren D. Marks, Katie E. Cherry, Jennifer L. Silva

Faculty Publications

Very few studies in the disaster literature include elderly adults, whose life experiences, perceptions, and spiritual needs in the post-disaster period may markedly differ in comparison to younger cohorts. In this 3, we address the topic of how young, middle age, older, and oldest-old adults coped with and made meaning of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita during the storms and their aftermath. The individuals who provided the qualitative interviews upon which this chapter is based were enrolled in the Louisiana Healthy Aging Study (LHAS), a multidisciplinary study of the determinants of longevity and healthy aging (see Cherry, Silva, & Galea, Chapter …