Background: Much scholarly and practitioner attention to the impact
of Hurricane Katrina on the city of New Orleans, Louisiana has focused
on the failures of government disaster prevention and management at all
levels, often overlooking the human strength and resourcefulness
observed in individuals and groups among the worst-affected
communities. Objectives: This preliminary study sought to investigate
human resilience in the city of New Orleans, State of Louisiana,
eighteen months after Hurricane Katrina struck the Mississippi delta
region. Methods: The Sense of Coherence scale, short form (SOC-13)
was administered to a sample of 41 residents of Lower Ninth Ward and
adjacent Wards who had been displaced by Hurricane Katrina but were
either living in or visiting their home area during March 2007. Study
participants were recruited through the local branch of the Association
of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), a nation-wide
grassroots organization whose mission is to promote the housing rights
of low and moderate-income individuals and families across the USA and
in several other countries. Results: Those who had returned to their
homes had significantly higher SOC scores compared to those who were
still displaced (p<0.001). Among the latter, those who were members
of ACORN scored significantly higher than non-members (pp<0.005),
and their SOC-13 scores were not significantly different from the
scores of study participants who had returned home (including both
members and non-members of ACORN). Conclusions: The findings of this
preliminary study concur with previous reports in the literature on the
deleterious impact of displacement on individual and collective
resilience to disasters. Relevant insight gleaned from the qualitative
data gathered during the course of administering the SOC-13 scale
compensate for the limitations of the small sample size as they draw
attention to the importance of the study participants' sources of
social support. Possible avenues for further research are outlined