Haitian Resilience, Natural Disasters & COVID-19
During the course, I read a piece by Guerda Nicolas about Haitians coping with the traumas associated with natural disasters and their resilience. Several post-disaster studies have found that there was notable prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression in the Haitian population. They have faced many political, economic, and environmental storms to include natural disasters (Nicolas et al, 2014, p. 93). Nicolas (2014) argues that the sociocultural traditions and customs of the Haitian people, family, religion, and community, are the reason for their resilience in the face of disaster.
Some refer to the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath as a “collective trauma,” defined as the “psychological response of an entire group to a traumatic event, such as the Holocaust” (Kaubisch et al, 2022, p. 28). From a psychological point of view, the threat of serious illness or death, the loss of jobs, the increased stress, the disruption in daily lives, the growing uncertainty, and the disconnect and isolation generated by the pandemic led to the consideration of COVID-19 as a traumatic event. Research suggests that one in five people could experience psychological distress post-COVID-19, such as depression, anxiety, and PTSD (Kaubisch et al, 2022, p. 27).
Prior to COVID-19, Haiti had just lifted restrictions from a political lockdown that had lasted almost a year and the country was also experiencing violent civil unrest triggered by an abrupt increase in fuel prices, a movement that became known as Peyi Lòk (Blanc et al, 2020). “When the first case of COVID-19 arrived in March 2020, the country was just beginning to regain a certain sense of normalcy despite the socio-economical and psychological ramifications of being on lockdown” (Blanc et al, 2020). Majority of the Haitian population continued to live their daily lives, as they were desensitized to the effects of disruption and forced isolation and distancing. Within three months, COVID-19 in Haiti had reached its peak and there was a decrease in the number of detected cases, predicting that the damage of the pandemic would not be too devastating to the country (Blanc et al, 2020).
It is argued that other countries, such as the United States, could learn from the Haitian experience of coping with traumatic events. Resilience is possible after exposure to trauma. Factors that promote posttraumatic growth are “positive social support, gratitude, strong family ties, attachment, and meaning making, or the way in which a person interprets or makes sense of life events” (Rousseau, 2023). The country of Haiti was created after the only successful slave insurrections in history and the resilience of that revolution threads through its history of tremendous struggles.
References:
Blanc, J., Louis, E.F., Joseph, J., Castor, C., & Jean-Louis, G. (2020). What the world could learn from the Haitian resilience while managing COVID-19. Psychological Trauma, 12(6), 569–571.
Kaubisch, L.T., Reck, C., von Tettenborn, A., & Woll, C.F. (2022). The COVID-19 pandemic as a traumatic event and the associated psychological impact on families – A systematic review. Journal of Affective Disorders, 319, 27–39.
Nicolas, G., Schwartz, B., & Pierre, E. (2014). WEATHERING THE STORMS LIKE BAMBOO: The Strengths of Haitians in Coping with Natural Disasters.
Rousseau, D. (2023). Module 1: Introduction to Trauma. Blackboard.