Examining the role of perceived discrimination stress, disaster communication, and community resilience perceptions in Hurricane Harvey stress reactions among Latinos in Texas

Abstract

The current study examines (a) how the experience of perceived discrimination stress can exacerbate posttraumatic stress (PTS) reactions following a disaster, and (b) how individual disaster communication and community resilience perceptions can mediate PTS following the same event. We surveyed 397 Latino residents who lived in Texas counties impacted by Hurricane Harvey. Using PROCESS (Hayes, 2018) [1] , results revealed that individuals who experienced more perceived discrimination stress in their daily lives reported more PTS symptoms as hurricane exposure increased when compared to individuals who experienced lower levels of perceived discrimination stress. Additionally, individual disaster communication indirectly reduced PTS symptoms through community resilience perceptions. The results suggest disaster public health models should incorporate multi-phase communicative efforts to address perceived discrimination stress and foster community resilience perceptions.