Course:EOSC311/2024/The Psychological Consequences of Geological Events

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Summary and Connections

Geological events and our ability to react to them can have a crucial impact on the psychological well-being of the survivors. Disasters such as earthquakes and landslides often leave victims without homes, lost jobs and take the lives of loved ones and community members. These stressors can contribute to survivors developing Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) which leaves its mark on communities long after rebuilding efforts are finished. This project touches on how geological events impact the psychological well being of the people who live through it, Post-traumatic stress disorder, the risk factors for natural disasters and PTSD, the treatment and prevention of psychological consequences, and how geologists can help the population when facing these disasters. Growing up in Vancouver where we are told it is likely an earthquake will hit us here someday and studying psychology made me develop a keen interest in the aftermath faced by the survivors of these events. I sought to use this project as an opportunity to delve into the current state of knowledge on what proportion of survivors are severely impacted psychologically, and what the options are for treatment following a diagnosis of PTSD. Through application of knowledge gained from my studies I tried to come up with possible solutions for how we can ensure survivors of these disasters receive the help they need, as that could very well be myself or someone I know in that same situation some day.

Geological Events and Their Consequences

Geological events demonstrate the devastating power of the natural world, changing lives in the process and forcing survivors to pick up the pieces. This project focuses on landslides and earthquakes, two of the most powerful and more common negative events in our world today.These devastating phenomena are responsible for an estimated 650 billion dollars USD globally since 2021, destroying and uprooting lives across the world.

Diagram depicts the three main types of plate boundaries and the direction of movement that leads to geological events. Sourced from Wikimedia Commons

Earthquakes are a phenomenon caused by the movements of tectonic plates. They typically occur along fault lines or plate boundaries, because of divergent, convergent or transform movement of the plates involved. The result is a great rumbling that can topple buildings or natural landscapes leaving humans at the mercy of mother nature. Earthquakes and their subsequent aftershocks can destroy or disrupt the lives of people in the area causing a lot of psychological stress to survivors, who must try and rebuild as best they can.

Landslides, sometimes called mass earth movements are often triggered by earthquakes, but can also happen due to a combination of human activity, excess precipitation and erosion of the earth’s soil. The combination makes the ground unstable, eventually giving away and leading to a rush of mud, dirt and rocks to rush out at the surrounding area in a catastrophic wave.

These disasters leave communities reeling and alter the lives of the people left in their wake, with national or global efforts often needed to help aid the survivors. The obvious consequences of geological disasters are the physical ones, leaving many injured or dead. The less visually obvious consequences are the psychological stressors experienced that pile on top of each other, leading to disorders like post-traumatic stress disorder.

Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

Post-traumatic Stress Disorder is a psychological disorder that can occur after a person goes through an extremely traumatic or stressful event. PTSD is common for those who are victims or even witnesses of natural disasters, leading to recurring nightmare like episodes of the event, numbing, and avoidance of stimuli that remind the person of the event. The disorder can leave people struggling to continue with their everyday life as the effects rob them of the ability to function normally. Treatment options are available, but the cost of getting psychological help or pharmaceutical intervention creates an insurmountable barrier for many.

With roughly one quarter of people who live through a natural disaster going on to develop PTSD related to the event, this is a problem that needs more understanding if we are to try and protect the lives of survivors. Living with PTSD is hard on those affected and their surrounding communities, some sufferers of PTSD experience anhedonia. Anhedonia is a symptom of PTSD that worsens the disorder because it is a breakdown in function of the brain's reward system, aim the emotional numbing resulting from Anhedonia can cause disinterest in activities, detachment from others and low levels of positive affect. PTSD and the resulting anhedonia can lead to a breakdown in relationships with people close to one another and is thought of by some because of some sort of mental weakness creating stigma.

Who's at Risk?

This graphic shows the risk of dying from an earthquake colour coded and overlayed onto a world map. Many of these areas highlighted are densely populated. Sourced from Wikimedia commons, SEDAC Maps

People living in areas around fault lines, volcano belts, and very contrasting weather patterns are at risk of becoming a victim of a major geological event. It is unrealistic and unreasonable to simply ask the people living in these areas to move somewhere with lower risk. People choose to reside in these areas susceptible to earthquakes sometimes out of economic necessity, or desirability of the area. Vancouver is an example of desirability over potential risks, as it sits right next a major fault line along the Juan de Fuca and North American plates, and individuals growing up here often have the collective memory of being told "the big one is coming" referring to the inevitability of a large earthquake happening near us. Yet despite the threat hanging loosely over our heads the local population grows each year, and our city is considered one of the most desirable in the world thanks to its natural beauty. Vancouver is just one example of people choosing to live in an area with a high possibility of dangerous geological activity. Whether it be choice, family or economic circumstance it is impossible to completely remove the risk of geological events and their lasting effect like PTSD.

PTSD has its own risk factors, where being a part of a certain group or gender can place an individual at a higher risk of developing PTSD after exposure to trauma. In children the predictors for developing PTSD after experiencing an earthquake were older age, high education level, being trapped, bereavement and witnessing injury or death. In adults the risk factors were being an emergency services worker, those who are of low socio-economic status, women, high education and age, being trapped and prior trauma were all associated with PTSD after earthquakes. Many of these risk factors are unchangeable demographic indicators such as gender or age, but we can take steps to address others such as the likelihood of being trapped. This can be lowered through a joint effort by geologists and engineers to ensure that we build structures on stable ground to high standards capable of withstanding geological events in the region.

Case Studies

A photo depicting the brutal destruction of a building as a result from the January 10th 2010 earthquake. Photo sourced from USAID’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance, Public Domain

In January of 2010 Haiti was rocked by a magnitude 7.0 earthquake that struck the capital city and surrounding area. They devastation was huge, leaving up to 316,000 dead and leaving an intense psychological scar on the surviving population. This amount of damage, death and injury exposed many of the surviving population to the likelihood of developing trauma from the event, compounding their suffering as they mourned family and friends and watched their city crumble due to poor building standards. The frantic search for survivors in the trapped rubble exposed people first hand to even more psychological stressors as they sought to try and save as many trapped people as they could. The frequency of the multiple psychological stressors creates a higher likelihood of developing PTSD as the stressors add to each other instead of one single large stressor. The psychological impact of the disaster has a further reaching effect than just the physical shockwaves as it impacted people across the country and many of Haitian descent who had moved away.

Following Chile's 8.8 magnitude earthquake in February of 2010, there was a much smaller death toll of only 800, thanks to strict building codes that had been put in place many years earlier following an earthquake. To evaluate the psychological impact, scientists use fully structured face to face interviews in addition to a biennial national representative survey from prior to the event in order to try and understand the psychological impact of the earthquake on the population. They found that the risk of PTSD as a result of a geological disaster can be predicted to be up to 18% for people in the top 5% of predisposed risk categories of permanent displacement, education disruption and job disruption. The Chilean case highlights that the stressors that come from earthquakes are not just the death and injury of loved ones that first come to mind, but also the destruction of daily routines and employment.

In May of 2008 a magnitude 8.0 earthquake struck the area of Wenchuan China, with tens of thousands losing their homes and families. The disaster resulted in 69,226 deaths, over 370,000 injured and almost 18,000 missing people. The scale of the disaster prompted swift government support for reconstruction, a key pillar of support with the destruction of homes and businesses being a major stressor for citizens. The study tracked survivors of the disaster and compared them to controls, and found that having two week disease prevalence present, witnessing death during the earthquake, loss of regular income, and only receiving mental health support once after the earthquake along with lower social support were all independent risk factors for PTSD symptoms. While many of these factors such as witnessing death and disease prevalence are unavoidable, this case shed light on risk factors we can address such as loss of regular income, mental health support and social support. Regular income can be addressed through swift government intervention providing financial security to survivors and aiding in a quick recovery of the area. Offering consistent mental health support and counselling to victims, as well as creating community support groups in the wake of disasters is a way external relief groups like the Red Cross can aid governments in looking after the survivors of these disasters.

Prevention and treatment

Treating PTSD is difficult, as there is no cure-all one time treatment that can rid survivors of the symptoms, and treatment is often focused on alleviating the symptoms enough to resume normal functioning. The areas that have higher prevalence rates following disaster are typically the more impoverished areas with low access to proper treatment from professionals and pharmacological interventions. There are many difficulties with getting psychological help after a disaster, such as how to mobilize and get professionals into the affected areas after a disaster and offering mental and emotional aid in the survivors native language.

Since PTSD was added to diagnostics and statistical manual III of the American Psychological association in 1980 research on PTSD has increased, leading to strong conclusions on the efficacy of various treatments. Currently the two most widely used are cognitive behavioural therapy(CBT), and pharmaceutically selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). We have treatments that work, the next step is ensuring fast and effective delivery of treatment in the wake of disasters.

Cognitive behavioural therapy often works through one on one counselling between the professional and the patient, but can also be done in group settings where the source of trauma is shared. CBT is very instructional, it encourages challenging cognitions, learning to reappraise the dysfunctional frameworks by exposing one to their feared stimuli, and educates the patient(s) in arousal reduction strategies when they start to feel themselves getting worked up by a flashback. The difficulty in administering CBT in the wake of disasters is the cost of getting professionals into affected areas, finding safe spaces to counsel survivors, and the overall perception that if people are physically safe from harm and uninjured that they don't need help.

A visual of how selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors function in at the neurotransmitter level. Sourced from Wikimedia Commons

Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors can be used as an emergency intervention to help alleviate some of the dangerous negative psychological symptoms that are a part of PTSD. SSRIs work at the neurotransmitter level, the block the reabsorption of serotonin into neurone making more available to improve transmission between neurons. SSRIs are typically used to treat depression and anxiety disorders, and in trials have shown effectiveness in treating PTSD and the depressive and anxious symptoms that come with the disorder. Pharmaceuticals present an opportunity for the immediate treatment of survivors that is much more realistic than CBT. An ideal solution would be having trained professionals assess survivors to find out if they meet the criteria for PTSD, and governments ensuring a supply of SSRIs that can help those affected until the opportunity to perform cognitive behavioural therapy arises.

How Geologists Can Have a Positive Impact

Even though the disciplines of psychology and geology are in completely different spheres of thought, geologists and psychology can come together to help populations avoid the worst of disasters through identifying risk factors in areas they live in. Geologists have the knowledge and technology that has mapped out the fault lines and done ground surveys to be able to identify risk of earthquakes and landslides occurring, which can in turn ensure governments can have proper systems in place should disaster strike. We have seen the failures to map out potential risks and the consequences of unreadiness in countries like Haiti, where the earthquake originated at previously unmapped and steeply dipping fault just 17 kilometres from the densely populated capital city. Governments need to ensure proper funding geological exploration and surveys so we can better understand what's going on underneath our feet, and be better prepared to deploy proper resources in the event of a disaster.

Geologists can play a role in aiding the psychological recovery of populations after a geological event through preemptive and reactive measures. Preemptively, they can continue to work to identify high risk areas, allowing local and national governments to create recovery plans that include teams of trained professionals to help counsel survivors.Time can be a crucial factor, and geologists are the ones who can read the earth better than anyone else to ensure high risk areas are prepared. Reactively, geologists can direct the flow of resources for recovery to ensure that help arrives in the areas that are most violently affected. After the event geologists will be the ones who know the location of the epicentre of the quake, and what surrounding areas were hit by seismic waves the hardest.

Conclusion

Major geological events are largely unavoidable, we can only do our best with the guiding hand of geologists to ensure we build our communities as safely as possible and treat our surrounding environments properly to avoid triggering disaster. Through observation and research we can see that people are unlikely to uproot their entire lives just because there is a risk of a geological event happening at some undetermined point in time and growing up in Vancouver you gain an inside understanding of just how unlikely people are to adjust their lives around geological risks. Studying psychology through university has allowed me to see the knock-on effects that events like earthquakes have on survivors and generate ideas for how to help survivors cope with one of the lesser talked about effects of these disasters. As research has continued the less talked about after effects of geological events such as the psychological toll on survivors are being better understood. Understanding that roughly a quarter of the survivors of the disastrous geological events go on to develop PTSD highlighted how little access there is to the necessary health interventions currently. PTSD is just one of the many consequences that come with these events, but it is often forgotten as it affects survivors and communities for long after the relief and rebuilding efforts have finished.

References

This Earth Science resource was created by Course:EOSC311.