The study of technological disasters has been characterized by conceptual am biguity and non-ecological considerations of community vulnerability. This re search employs an ecological-symbolic theoretical approach that identifies nat ural resource communities as particularly vulnerable to disasters that contaminate biophysical resources. A longitudinal panel study, including a control community, provides data on disruption and stress experienced by res idents of a small fishing community in Prince William Sound, Alaska. The analysis reveals a continuing pattern of stress and disruptions some 18 months following the spill. The report concludes with a discussion of the specific long- term patterns observed.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Ahearn, F.L. and Cohen, R.E., 1984. Disasters and Health: an Annotated Bibliography. National Institute of Mental Health, Rockville, MD.
2.
Barton, A.H., 1969. Communities in Disaster: a Sociological Analysis of Collective Stress Situations. Doubleday, Garden City, NY.
3.
Baum, A., Fleming R. and Singer, J.E., 1982. Stress at Three Mile Island: applying psychological impact analysis. In: L. Bickman, ed. Applied Social Psychology Annual, 3. Sage, Newbury Park, CA: 217-248.
4.
Baum, A., Fleming R. and Singer, J.E., 1983. Coping with victimization by technological disaster. Journal of Social Issues, 39 (2): 117-138.
5.
Bogard, W., 1989. The Bhopal Tragedy. Westview, Boulder, CO.
6.
Brown, G.W. and Harris, T., 1979. Laying Waste: Love Canal and the Poisoning of America . Random House, New York.
7.
Couch, S.R. and Kroll-Smith, S., 1985. The chronic technical disaster: toward a social scientific perspective. Social Science Quarterly, 66: 564-575.
8.
Davidson, A., 1990. In the Wake of the Exxon Valdez: the Devastating Impact of the Alaska Oil Spill. Sierra Club Books, San Francisco, CA.
9.
Davidson, J., Smith R. and Kudler, H., 1989. Validity and reliability of the DSM-III criteria for posttraumatic stress disorder. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 177 (6): 336-341.
10.
Davidson, L.M. and Baum, A., 1986. Chronic stress and post-traumatic stress disorders. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 54: 303-308.
11.
Devellis, R.G., 1991. Scale Development: Theory and Applications. Sage, Newbury Park, CA.
12.
Dew, M.A., Bromet, E.J. and Schulburg, H.C., 1987. Mental health effects of the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor restart. American Journal of Psychiatry,144: 1074-1077.
13.
Dillman, D.A., 1978. Mail and Telephone Surveys. Wiley, New York.
14.
Dohrenwend, B.S., 1978. Social stress and community psychology. American Journal of Community Psychology, 6 (1): 1-14.
15.
Drabek, T.E., 1986. Human Systems Responses to Disaster. Springer, New York.
16.
Drabek, T.E. and Key, W.H., 1976. The impact of disaster on primary group linkages. Mass Emergencies, 1 (2): 89-105.
17.
Dyer, C.L., Gill, D.A. and Picou, J.S., 1992. Social disruption and the Valdez oil spill: Alaskan Natives in a natural resource community. Sociological Spectrum, 12 (2): 105-126.
Edelstein, M.R., 1988. Contaminated Communities: the Social and Psychological Impacts of Residential Toxic Exposure. Westview, Boulder, CO.
20.
Erikson, K.T., 1976. Everything in Its Path: Destruction of Community in the Buffalo Creek Flood. Simon & Schuster, New York.
21.
Erikson, K.T., 1991. A new species of trouble. In: S.R. Couch and J.S. Kroll-Smith, eds. Communities at Risk. Lang, New York.
22.
Fall, J.A., 1990. The Division of Subsistence of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game: an overview of its research program and findings: 1980-1990 . Arctic Anthropology, 27 (2): 68-92.
23.
Freudenburg, W.R. and Jones, T.R., 1991. Attitudes and stress in the presence of technological risk: a test of the Supreme Court hypothesis. Social Forces , 69 (4): 1143-1168.
24.
Frey, J.H., 1983. Survey Research by Telephone. Sage , Newbury Park, CA.
25.
Frisbie, W.P. and Poston, D.L., 1975. Components of sustenance organization and nonmetropolitan population change: a human ecological investigation. American Sociological Review, 40: 773-784.
26.
Fritz, C.E., 1961. Disaster. In: R.K. Merton and R.A. Nisbet, eds. Contemporary Social Problems. Harcourt, New York: 651-694.
27.
Gibbs, J.P. and Martin, W.T., 1959. Towards a theoretical system of human ecology. Pacific Sociological Review, 2: 29-36.
28.
Gill, D.A., 1986. A disaster impact assessment model: an empirical study of a technological disaster. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Department of Sociology, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX.
29.
Gill, D.A. and Picou, J.S., 1989. Toxic waste disposal sites as technological disasters . In: Psychosocial Effects of Hazardous Toxic Waste Disposal on Communities. Thomas, Springfield, IL: 81-97.
30.
Gill, D.A. and Picou, J.S., 1991. The social psychological impacts of a technological accident: collective stress and perceived health risks. Journal of Hazardous Materials, 27 (1): 77-89.
31.
Gillespie, D.F., 1988. Barton's theory of collective stress is a classic and worth testing. International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters, 6 (3): 345-361.
32.
Gleser, G.C., Green, B.L. and Winget, C.N., 1981. Prolonged Psychosocial Effects of Disasters: a Study of Buffalo Creek. Academic, New York .
33.
Hawley, A., 1950. Human Ecology: a Theory of Community Structure. Ronald, New York.
34.
Horowitz, M.J., 1974. Stress response syndromes: character style and brief psychotherapy . Archives of General Psychiatry,31: 768-781.
35.
Horowitz, M.J., 1976. Stress Response Syndromes. Aronson , New York.
36.
Horowitz, M., 1990. Post-traumatic stress disorders: psychological aspects of the diagnosis. International Journal of Mental Health, 19 (1): 21-36.
37.
Horowitz, M.J., Milner, N. and Alvarez, W., 1979. Impact of event scale: a measure of subjective stress . Psychosomatic Medicine, 41 (3): 209-218.
38.
Houts, P.S., Cleary, P.D. and Hu, T.W., 1988. The Three Mile Island Crisis. Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park, PA.
39.
Keeble, J., 1991. Out of the Channel: the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill in Prince William Sound. Harper Collins, New York.
40.
Krep, G.A., 1985. Disaster and the social order. Sociological Theory, 3: 49-65.
41.
Krep, G.A., ed., 1989. Social Structure and Disasters. University of Delaware Press, Newark, DE.
42.
Kroll-Smith, J.S. and Couch, S.R., 1989. Some thoughts on natural disasters: technological hazards and social change. Environment, Technology, and Society, 56: 2-4.
43.
Kroll-Smith, J.S. and Couch, S.R., 1990. The Real Disaster is Above Ground: a Mine Fire and Social ConflictUniversity of Kentucky Press, Lexington, KY.
44.
Kroll-Smith, J.S. and Couch, S.R., 1991a. What is disaster? An ecological symbolic approach to resolving the definitional debate. International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters, 9 (3): 355-366.
45.
Kroll-Smith, J.S. and Couch, S.R., 1991b. Technological hazards, adaptation and social change. In: S.R. Couch and J.S. Kroll-Smith, eds. Communities at Risk. Lang, New York.
46.
Livessay, J.M., Boyer, J.C. and Harding, J.R., 1984. Social impact assessment: conceptual frameworks and their implications for planner. In: W. Nellsap, ed. Applied Social Science for Environmental Planning. Westview Press, Boulder, CO: 23-35.
47.
Lounsbury, J.W., Van Liere, K.D. and Meissen, G.J., 1983. Psychosocial assessment. In: K. Finsterbush, L.G. Llewellyn and C.P. Snow, eds. Social Impact Assessment Methods. Sage, Newbury Park, CA.
48.
Maser, J.D. and Solomon, S.D., 1990. Psychosocial and psychobiological consequences of exposure to extreme stressors. Journal of Applied Social Psychology , 20-21: 1725-1732.
49.
Mileti, D.S., Drabek, T.E. and Haas, J.E., 1975. Human Systems in Extreme Environments: a Sociological Perspective.Institute of Behavioral Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO.
50.
Murdock, S.H., 1979. The potential role of the ecological framework in impact analysis. Rural Sociology, 44 (3): 543-565.
51.
National Response Team, 1989. The Exxon Valdez Oil Spill. Report to the President, US Department of Transportation, Washington, DC.
Omohundro, J.D., 1982. The impacts of an oil spill. Human Organization , 41 (1): 17-25.
54.
Picou, J.S., 1984. Ecological, Physical, Economic, Sociological, and Psychological Assessment of the Illinois Central Gulf Train Derailment. Volume 5: Sociological Assessment. Gulf South Research Institute, Baton Rouge, LA.
55.
Picou, J.S., Gill, D.A., Dyer, C.L. and Curry, E., 1990. Social Disruption and Psychological Stress in an Alaskan Fishing Community: the Impact of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill. Quick Response Research Report QR35, Natural Hazards Research and Applications Information Center, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO.
56.
Quarantelli, E.L., 1985. What is a disaster: the need for clarification in definition and conceptualization in research. International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters, 5: 7-32.
57.
Quarantelli, E.L. and Dynes, R.R., 1970. Editors' introduction. American Behavioral Scientist, 13 (3): 325-330.
58.
Restoration Planning Work Group, 1990. Restoration Planning Following the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill: August, 1990. Progress Report, State of Alaska, Department of Interior, Anchorage, AK.
59.
Salaman, G., 1971. Some sociological determinants of occupational communities . Sociological Review, 19 (1): 53-76.
60.
Sherwonit, B., 1991. Whales on the wane. Anchorage Times, 15 December: H1 and H4.
61.
Shore, J.H., Vollmer, W.H. and Tatum, E.L., 1989. Community patterns of posttraumatic stress disorders. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 177 (11 ): 681-685.
62.
Shrivastava, 1987. Bhopal: Anatomy of a Crisis. Harper & Row, Cambridge, MA.
63.
Smith, E., Robins, L.N., Przybeck, T.R., Goldring, E. and Solomon, S., 1986. Psychosocial consequences of a disaster. In: J.H. Shore, ed. Disaster Stress Studies: New Methods and Findings. American Psychiatric Press, Washington, DC: 49-76.
64.
Smythe, C.W., 1988. Harvest and use of fish and wildlife resources by residents of Petersburg, Alaska. Technical Paper No. 164, Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Division of Subsistence, Anchorage, AK.
65.
Solomon, S.D., 1989. Research issues in assessing disaster's effects. In: R. Gist and B. Lubin, eds. Psychosocial Aspects of Disasters. Wiley, New York: 307-340.
66.
Stanek, R., 1985. Patterns of wild resource use in Tatitlek, Alaska. Technical Paper No. 181, Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Division of Subsistence, Anchorage, AK.
67.
Steinglass, P. and Gerrity, E., 1991. Natural disasters and post-traumatic stress disorders: short-term versus long-term recovery in two disaster-affected communities . Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 20-21: 1746-1765.
68.
Stewart, R.B., Gerson, S.M. and Bottini, J.W., 1991. Notice of lodging of United States' summary of effects of Exxon Valdez oil spill on natural resources. Filed in US District Court, District of Alaska, 8 April, Civil Action No. A91-082.
69.
Stratton, L., 1989. Resource use in Cordova: a coastal community of Southcentral Alaska. Technical Paper No. 153, Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Division of Subsistence, Anchorage, AK.
70.
Turner, B.A., 1978. Man Made Disasters. Crane, Russak, New York.
71.
Yeomans, K.A., 1968. Applied Statistics: Statistics for the Social Scientist , Vol. II. Penguin, Middlesex.
