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Study: Katrina Survivors Find Resolve
Beginning in January, the researchers surveyed a representative cross-section totaling 1,043 adults who lived in the path of destruction across Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.
Participants were asked about their lives before and afterward. These telephone interviews, to be repeated every three months for seven years, cover everything from housing and income to physical and mental health. The researchers then compared these results with surveys of 826 people from the same areas in a national health study from 2001-03.
  Hurricane Katrina survivor John Muller, 58, looks up at the hole be cut in his roof to escape the flooding of his home nearly one year ago in the Ninth Ward section of New Orleans, Monday, Aug. 28, 2006. (AP Photo/LM Otero) (Lm Otero - AP) 
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"The battle for us is just a continual battle against negativity," said Juan Lizarraga, a New Orleans lawyer who lives in his yard inside a trailer supplied by federal emergency officials.
Lizarraga was one of those surveyed and he accompanied researchers to a news conference. "I think what your results are showing is the incredible resilience of the people," he told the researchers.
There were earlier reports that suggested that suicide rates may have climbed in New Orleans after the storm. However, this study considered a much broader region where even a pocket of suicides in one place might wash out in broader statistics, because suicides are so rare.
The Harvard researchers were unable to calculate actual suicide rates _ only suicidal tendencies of survivors _ partly because evacuees scattered so widely. The survey showed no spike in suicidal tendencies in New Orleans but did find that half the city's survivors were having nightmares about their experiences, compared with a quarter of all survivors.
As for practical concerns, a third of all participants said their living situation was worse now, but 11 percent said it was better. Similarly, a fourth said their life was worse as a whole, but 14 percent said it was better.
Of those who had left New Orleans, 16 percent intended to return, 19 percent planned to live elsewhere, and others were uncertain.
One possible weakness of the survey is that it has roughly a 4 percent margin of error for disease rates, and it relies on people's own, possibly faulty, accounts of their experiences. Finally, only 42 percent of those contacted agreed to participate _ a low rate that can theoretically skew results.
It's also unclear if the apparent protective effect against suicide will be permanent. If survivors eventually lose hope in the recovery, they might become more susceptible to giving up, researchers suspect.
"There may be a crash-and-burn experience ... months down the road," cautioned Alan Green, a Johns Hopkins University counselor who treated survivors and knew of the survey findings.
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On the Net
Harvard's survey Web site: http:/
Bulletin of the World Health Organization: http:/