BACKGROUND: Behavioral health symptoms (e.g. anxiety or depressed mood) are common after disasters. On June 23, 2016, rainstorms caused deadly flash-flooding throughout West Virginia. The West Virginia Bureau for Public Health requested CDC assistance to conduct Community Assessments for Public Health Emergency Response (CASPER) in 2 affected communities, Clendenin and Rainelle, with objectives including describing postflooding health and behavioral health symptoms and resource usage.
METHODS: We used 2-stage cluster sampling with a target of 210 household interviews per community. We adapted questions from previous CASPERs. Interviewers conducted interviews on August 1–2, 2016. We used Epi InfoTM 7.2 and weighted data to calculate community estimates, confidence intervals (CIs), and crude risk ratios (RRs).
RESULTS: Teams completed 195 interviews in Clendenin and 197 in Rainelle (representing 2,569 and 1,923 households, respectively). Since flooding, 1,552 (60%) Clendenin households and 1,024 (53%) Rainelle households had ≥1 member with increased behavioral health symptoms, although only 218 (8%) and 219 (11%), respectively, had ≥1 member who received behavioral health services. Since flooding, households that self-reported increased behavioral health symptoms had higher risk for increased tobacco use (Clendenin RR: 17.4; CI: 10.2–29.4, Rainelle RR: 6.2; CI: 4.2–9.2), worsened hypertension (Clendenin RR: 4.3; CI: 3.3–9.8, Rainelle RR: 3.8; CI 2.7–5.4), and worsened asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder (COPD) (Clendenin RR: 5.9; CI: 4.3–8.2, Rainelle RR: 2.7; CI: 2.0–4.1) than households without increased behavioral health symptoms.
CONCLUSIONS: Increased behavioral health symptoms were common 5 weeks postflooding, although few households received behavioral health services. The association of behavioral health symptoms with worsened chronic diseases suggests that recovery efforts should simultaneously prioritize available behavioral health and health-care services.