More than one-fourth of New Orleans college students had a family member, significant other or close friend who was missing during or after the hurricane, and 9.1 percent of students had family members, significant others or close friends who lost their lives, according to a survey of Loyola, Xavier and UNO students conducted this fall.
The results of that survey have been compiled into a report titled: “The Other Diaspora: New Orleans Student Evacuation Impacts and Responses Surrounding Hurricane Katrina.”
Anthony E. Ladd, associate professor of sociology at Loyola, authored the study with John Marszalek of Xavier University and Duane A. Gill of Mississippi State University.
The research findings were divided into eight sections: sample demographics; evacuation and storm experiences; economic impacts and losses; government and institutional disaster response; medical impacts; mental health impacts; academic concerns and relocated university experiences; and the need for university services after returning to the New Orleans university.
The study showed that a significant percentage of those surveyed had close relationships with those who were in the direst of situations during the city’s collapse. Almost a third of students, 29.8 percent, had a family member, significant other or friend who was forced to take shelter in either the New Orleans Superdome or the Convention Center.
Besides the emotional toll of Katrina, students also reported considerable material losses.
More than 80 percent of students had their on- or off-campus residence damaged, and 40.8 percent said, as of November 2005, that they were unable to continue living in that place of residence.
An overwhelming majority of students, 84.6 percent, reported that they incurred some financial loss, and more than one-third, 39.4 percent, reported that they lost their jobs as a result of Hurricane Katrina.
Medical complaints were a noteworthy part of the disaster’s effect.
Twenty-three percent of students reported seeing a doctor or health care provider as a result of the hurricane. About one-half of students reported experiencing the following physical symptoms more than usual since the hurricane: fatigue, 51 percent; headaches, 47.1 percent and sleeping problems, 53.2 percent.
“These are very typical medical symptoms that are often signs of psychological stress.
These are medical problems in their own right, but we also know that they’re highly related to psychological stress,” Ladd said.
The academic performance of students displaced at other schools also was predicted to have suffered.
Almost three-fourths of students, 74.3 percent, believed that it was either “somewhat,” “very” or “very definitely likely” that their academic performance had been negatively affected by their disaster experience. More than one-third of students, 36.3 percent, stated that they had withdrawn from classes for which they had signed up after Hurricane Katrina.
The study was conducted as a Web-based survey, and students were contacted by e-mail and asked to participate. The survey began early in November 2005 and was closed by Dec. 16, 2005.
A total of 7,100 students from all three universities responded to the survey, resulting in an effective response rate of 38 percent. Ladd said he considered this a good response, considering the circumstances under which the study took place.
“We were pretty pleased with that, because we were sampling students in a dislocated state or private university. For any kind of mail survey, a response rate around 40 percent is considered respectable,” said Ladd.
“We’re happy that these three universities got into the survey, because Loyola, Xavier and UNO are more representative of the overall student body in New Orleans,” said Ladd.
The students in the sample are more likely to be representative of Louisiana residents, in terms of race and class, he said.
“No one has studied a hurricane of this magnitude; no one has studied college students who have gone through such a catastrophic hurricane or natural disaster. Our data is relatively unique in terms of the overall literature and the hurricane literature,” said Ladd.
Results from the survey are still being evaluated, and the data for the three schools will be individually assessed and compared. The study will also include the qualitative data from the survey.
This narrative data will be analyzed for common themes and will be used to discover what students think their university might have done differently to have better prepared them for the hurricane, what events surrounding the hurricane affected them most and what the university can provide for students and other survivors of the disaster.
“We live in the age of disasters. We live in the age of risk,” said Ladd. “Those disasters are increasing, both in frequency and in size, and unfortunately, we’re going to have to learn a lot more about them and about how to prepare for them and deal with them better than we do now, if we’re going to make it in the coming century.”
Lindsey Netherly can be reached at [email protected].
