Citation

Price M, Davidson TM, Andrews JO, Ruggiero KJ. J. Telemed. Telecare 2013; 19(2): 70-74.

Affiliation

Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, South Carolina, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2013, Royal Society of Medicine Press)

DOI

10.1177/1357633X13476230

PMID

23514936

Abstract

African-Americans and Hispanics are disproportionally affected by disasters. We evaluated differences in the use and completion of a web-based mental health intervention, Disaster Recovery Web (DRW), by White, African-American and Hispanic adults in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike. Approximately one year after the hurricane, a telephone survey was carried out with adults from Galveston and Chambers counties. A total of 1249 adults participated in the survey (80% White, 14% African-American and 6% Hispanic). Mental health and mental health service utilization were assessed. Whites were more likely to have previously used the Internet to obtain general health information than African-Americans or Hispanics (P < 0.001). A logistic regression was used to identify differences in the use of the Internet intervention after controlling for covariates. There were no differences in rates of non-use and dropout attrition between Whites, African-Americans and Hispanics. Thus the findings suggest that web-based mental health interventions can be used to reach African-American, Hispanic and White adults at similar rates after a disaster.

Language: en