School and Community Influences on the Long Term Post-Disaster Recovery of Children and Youth Following Hurricane Georges.

Disasters affect the school and community microsystems in which children and youth recover. This study explored characteristics of the school (school violence, teachers' attitudes) and community microsystem (neighborhood climate, neighborhood monitoring, community violence) that may affect the disaster exposure and internalizing psychopathology relationship in children and youth 12-27 months after Hurricane Georges hit Puerto Rico. A representative sample (N=1,637) of caregivers and children/youth completed structured interviews in Spanish. Controlling for gender and perception of poverty, for children (age 6-10 years), hurricane exposure increased risk for internalizing psychopathology, but the school and community variables did not have an influence. For all youth (age 11-17 years), witnessing community violence and poor teacher attitudes increased the risk of psychopathology. In addition, neighborhood climate and school violence were moderators. For non-exposed youth, poor neighborhood climate and perceiving greater school violence increased the risk of internalizing psychopathology, whereas for exposed youth it did not.