Funding Opportunity: Gulf Mental Health

Climate-Induced Mental Health Impacts Among Migrant Farmworker Families in Florida: Implications for Mitigation, Adaptation, and Preparedness

Project Director: Miranda Dally, University of Colorado, Denver
Project Location: Florida (six communities in Citrus, Collier, Hernando, Miami-Dade, and Sumter counties)
Award: $999,920
Project Summary: At least 15% of the estimated 3 million farmworkers in the U.S. migrate for agricultural work seasonally. Many such migrant farmworkers are in Texas and Florida. For migrant farmworker families, climate-change-induced hazards (e.g., increasing temperatures, storms and associated flooding) are resulting in severe negative economic and social impacts, including fewer opportunities related to diminishing crop yields. Mental health impacts of climate-related challenges on families may include psychological distress, anxiety, depression, PTSD, substance abuse, and risk of self-harm. Furthermore, impacts on income earners and caregivers can have detrimental effects on the mental health and well-being of other family members and the overall functioning of families. Women will be the primary informants for the research, providing a rich source of information about the mental health impacts of climate change on themselves, other family members, and the family system. Additionally, this research will examine the relationship between mental health, climate anxiety, and climate mitigation, adaptation, and preparedness, informing interventions to support the millions of migrant farmworkers and their families in the U.S. and globally.

Climate Threats and Mental Health: A Prospective, Longitudinal, Representative Study of Gulf Coast Residents

Project Director: Dana Rose Garfin, University of California, Los Angeles
Project Location: Texas, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana
Award: $1,000,000
Project Summary: This project will examine relationships between climate-change-related disaster exposure (e.g., hurricanes, flooding, heat waves, tornadoes) and mental health outcomes (e.g., post-traumatic stress symptoms, depression, anxiety) using a mixed-method, prospective, longitudinal study of a representative sample of 1,900 Gulf Coast residents. All participants will complete three waves of epidemiological survey data between 2024-2025; 50 participants will also complete in-depth qualitative interviews focusing on lived experience with climate change and related disasters. Psychological responses specific to climate change (e.g., climate-change-related anxiety and worry) and individual-level adversity (e.g., abuse, illness) will also be evaluated. Individual- and collective-level factors supporting resilience (e.g., social support, adaptation, mitigation) will be tested as potential moderators that buffer the effects of disaster exposure on mental health over time.

Assessing Mental Health Disparities in At-Risk Youth After Climate Disasters in Louisiana

Project Director: Margaret Sugg, Appalachian State University
Project Location: Louisiana
Award: $999,770
Project Summary: Despite the frequency of climate disasters in the Gulf Coast region, little is known about the real-time mental health response in youth. Prior research has highlighted the promise of mobile crisis counseling services in measuring and monitoring youth mental health risks before and after climate events such as hurricanes, wildfires, winter weather, and high temperatures. This project will add to this research by examining the causal link between exposure to extreme weather and increased mental health vulnerability in at-risk youth in Louisiana; quantifying the impact of climate disasters on youth mental health; and identifying vulnerable subgroups in need of additional crisis support. This project based on community participation will form a strong partnership with Louisiana’s Volunteer and Information Agency, the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention chapters in Louisiana and Mississippi, and a mental health-climate research team at Appalachian State University and North Carolina State University.

Climate-Induced Exposures and Mental Health: Assessing Multilevel Impact and Identifying Vulnerable Communities

Project Director: Md Mostafijur Rahman, Tulane University
Project Location: Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida
Award: $999,590
Project Summary: Despite high vulnerability to the effects of climate change, the Gulf Coast region lacks a comprehensive study addressing the mental health impacts of climate-induced extreme environmental exposures. To address this gap, this project will implement a large-scale epidemiological investigation across five Gulf states, focusing on Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries, who represent the most socioeconomically disadvantaged populations. The project will assess the independent and cumulative mental health impacts of multiple climate-induced environmental exposures, including heat, air pollution, and power outages. Additionally, the project will assess whether adaptive factors, such as access to green space and air conditioning, mitigate the effects, and how maladaptive factors, such as proximity to petrochemical facilities and individual, neighborhood, social, and climatological vulnerability, amplify these effects.

Understanding Protective Factors for the Mental Health & Suicide Consequences of Gulf Climate-Related Disasters

Project Director: Hannah Rochford, Texas A&M University School of Public Health
Project Location: Texas A&M University Health Science Center, Urban Institute
Award: $943,165
Project Summary: The climate-related disaster (CRD) mental health burden is generally well documented and calls for investment in efforts to mitigate adverse mental health outcomes and inequities. This project will identify equitably protective factors and work with Gulf community partners to translate these into policy and adaptive actions. The project will be informed by in-depth interviews with professionals central to CRD response and/or at unique risk for severe CRD consequences. These include first responders and health care workers, natural resource industry professionals, and school leadership in Gulf communities exposed to CRDs. Secondary data will be used to understand the variation of CRD burdens, adverse mental health and suicide outcomes across identities, and the prevalence of potentially protective factors in the Gulf states from 2005-2022. The impact of potentially protective factors on the mental health and suicide outcomes in Gulf communities will then be estimated using quasi-experimental designs and community-level data. Stratifying models by various community attributes will allow findings to be tailorable to diverse Gulf community needs

Reducing Disparities in Disaster-Related Mental Health Burden: Adapting a multilevel intervention to build community-based response

Project Director (PD): Jennifer Scott
PD Organization: Louisiana State University
Project Location: Baton Rouge, LA
Total Award Amount: $999,992

Overview: The Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) study will follow a multiphase mixed-methods design to adapt, deliver, and assess the efficacy of the adapted RCHC intervention model. We will partner with a broad-based community organization, Together Baton Rouge, to adapt the Resilience and Coping for the Healthcare Community (RCHC) intervention model to fit the African American community context of East Baton Rouge Parish (EBRP).The objectives of the multi-level intervention model are twofold: (1) reduce psychological distress and amplify protective factors among individuals and communities at risk of experiencing disasters; and (2) build individual and community psychological support response capacity. The intervention will be delivered at community institutions (i.e., churches) to their institutional members. We will conduct a stepped wedge cluster randomized controlled trial (SWCRCT) to examine the impact of the adapted intervention. Measures of mental health, coping, social support and community resilience will be assessed at four timepoints (see timeline for data collection timepoints). We will conduct interviews and group reflections with CFs and participants to gain insight into their experiences with the intervention. The study will inform the development of an intervention and delivery model potentially deliverable through other broad-based coalitions of organizations.

Testing the Feasibility of an Online Stress Management Intervention for Disaster Exposed Young Adult Vietnamese-Americans

Project Director (PD): David Abramson
PD Organization: New York University
Project Location: New Orleans, LA and Houston, TX
Total Award Amount: $999,661

Overview: Vietnamese-Americans living along the Gulf Coast have experienced many collective traumas: the cultural trauma of displacement from their homes at the end of the Vietnam War in 1975; the destruction of 2005’s Hurricane Katrina, the costliest natural disaster in US history; the economic and ecological devastation of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010; and most recently the health and economic disruptions of the coronavirus pandemic. Alongside these acute collective stressors, many in the Vietnamese communities have also struggled with the pressures of acculturation, particularly among young adult second-generation immigrant Vietnamese-Americans who have trouble communicating with non-English speaking parents and grandparents. Although these Vietnamese communities have exhibited individual, familial, and community resilience in the face of the many disasters and stressors, there are reports of rising rates of mental health distress and disability among disaster-exposed individuals, even while the pursuit of mental health treatment remains highly stigmatized. This proposed project will test the fit and feasibility of adapting and employing an online version of an evidence-based mental health intervention, Self Help Plus, among young adult Vietnamese-Americans in New Orleans and Houston to address in a culturally-tailored fashion the specific mental health needs of this community. In collaboration with the Tulane University Center for Studies of Displaced Populations, the NYU Center for Public Health Disaster Science and NYU’s Global Mental Health and Stigma Program will partner with two community-based organizations, VAYLA and BPSOS, to recruit and conduct a culturally-adapted evidence-based stress management intervention involving online group sessions and guided audio instruction.

Nature-based therapy: A socioecological and RE-AIM approach to treating disasterrelated PTSD in flood-vulnerable communities

Project Director (PD): Dongying Li
PD Organization: Texas A&M University
Project Location: Houston, TX
Total Award Amount: $448,879

Overview: More than a third of individuals exposed to major disasters may develop posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Although post-disaster PTSD prevalence generally decreases after a year, studies have reported delayed-onset PTSD and psychological distress in disadvantaged groups at a 5-year followup [1, 2]. Nature-based therapy (NBT) has potential as a low-cost multi-level intervention to reduce individual PTSD symptoms and enhance community resilience; however, existing evidence mostly involves veterans. The efficacy and longer-term maintenance of NBT in reducing symptoms in hurricane-affected communities remain unelucidated, especially for Hispanic populations in historically redlined neighborhoods, who have distinct cultural traits and face disproportionate environmental and social stressors that impact their relations with natural space [3]. This project aims to: 1) develop and assess an NBT program in the context of ethnic minority and flood-vulnerable neighborhoods using a RE-AIM (reach, effectiveness, adoption, implementation, and maintenance) framework, and 2) determine the efficacy of NBT at reducing PTSD and mental distress symptoms. To achieve these aims, we will use a mixed methods design to develop a locally appropriate NBT intervention using community engaged research (Phase I), carry out a randomized controlled trial (Phase II), and assess the implementation and sustainability using the RE-AIM framework (Phase III). Being grounded in a socioecological perspective at the human-place nexus, the results will advance science regarding NBT efficacy in mitigating PTSD and inform an integrative community resilience framework to combat climate-related natural disasters. The intervention is relatively low-cost and ecologically acceptable, and can be adopted in similar underresourced ethnic minority communities.

M-O-M-S on the Bayou: Implementation of an intervention for mental health in pregnancy

Project Director (PD): Emily Harville
PD Organization: Tulane University
Project Location: Bayou Region & River Parishes, LA
Total Award Amount: $999,710

Overview: Experiencing natural disaster during pregnancy is associated with long-term mental and physical effects on mother and child, but few interventions address this population or circumstance. The Mentors Offering Maternal Support (M-O-M-S) intervention focus on the mother’s mental health, relationships, and cognitions around pregnancy, incorporating “mentorship” by nonclinical but trained facilitators, who lead sessions over the course of pregnancy. This intervention reduced pregnancy-specific anxiety and improved birth outcomes among military women dealing with deployment. Through interviews with key stakeholders in a region (Bayou Region and River Parishes in southern Louisiana) that has been hit with multiple disasters (most recently Hurricane Ida), we will adapt the M-O-M-S intervention to determine how it can best be deployed post-disaster. We will use the EPIS (Exploration, Preparation, Implementation, Sustainment) framework to implement the intervention in a post-disaster context to achieve the following aims: 1) Conduct formative communityinformed needs assessment interviews with pregnant and postpartum women, prenatal care providers, disaster planners, and other service providers to assess barriers and facilitators of implementing this program; and determine promising strategies for implementing the program in a disaster-affected area. 2) Assess the implementation outcomes (acceptability, adaptation, adoption, feasibility, fidelity, and sustainability) of the M-O-M-S intervention in this region and set of circumstances; 3) Assess the effectiveness of the M-O-M-S intervention for improving mental health. This project will help develop an evidence-based toolkit for mitigating effects of disaster. Without such interventions, effects of disaster will be worse than they need to be, and extend to the next generation.

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Funding Opportunity: Gulf Mental Health

Cycle 2: Understanding Risk Factors Contributing to Climate-Induced Mental Health Impacts

Cycle 2 (Awarded 2024)

Resources

Awarded Projects

Cycle 1 (Awarded 2022)

Resources

Awarded Projects

My Academies

Funding Opportunity: Gulf Mental Health

Cycle 2: Understanding Risk Factors Contributing to Climate-Induced Mental Health Impacts

Cycle 2 (Awarded 2024)

Resources

Awarded Projects

Cycle 1 (Awarded 2022)

Resources

Awarded Projects