Understanding the longer-term health, wellbeing, and sense of community for disabled people following the 2010–2011 Canterbury earthquakes: A repeated cross-sectional study

Abstract

Disabled people are disproportionately affected following disasters. Research exploring disability in disaster contexts is primarily focused on short to medium timeframes. Evidence on longer-term health and wellbeing outcomes is scant. In 2010–2011 Canterbury experienced a series of devastating earthquakes. In September 2012, the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority initiated a population representative cross-sectional Wellbeing Survey, which has been administered at 12 time-points as of November 2020. This study analysed the pattern of disabled and non-disabled people responses over time across four variables: wellbeing, quality of life, sense of community, and stress. Observed mean changes were modelled and compared using fractional polynomial curves. Valid responses were available from 30,736 participants in total over the 12 time-points, of whom 18.4 % experienced disability. Significant time patterns and sustained group differences were observed across all four variables, with mean scores for those with a disability being 13.4 (95 % CI: 12.6, 14.2) lower in wellbeing, 0.54 (95 % CI: 0.51, 0.57) lower for quality of life, 0.34 (95 % CI: 0.30, 0.37) lower in stress, and by November 2020, 0.14 (95 % CI: 0.10, 0.18) lower in sense of community scores compared to their non-disabled counterparts. There appeared to be little difference in mean sense of community scores between groups immediately after the earthquake, suggesting a potential halo effect. Overall, these data suggest that the health and wellbeing outcomes for disabled people are significantly worse than non-disabled people. Findings emphasise the need for recovery efforts to focus on ameliorating significantly worse health and wellbeing outcomes experienced by disabled people.