Longitudinal Cohort Study of Depression and Anxiety Among Older Informal Caregivers Following the Initial COVID-19 Pandemic Response in Aotearoa New Zealand.

OBJECTIVES: To assess the impact of providing care and conditions of care on psychological wellbeing among older informal caregivers following the initial period of COVID-19 pandemic restrictions in Aotearoa New Zealand. METHODS: Data were from population-based cohorts of older adults participating in the 2020 Health, Work and Retirement longitudinal survey (n = 3839, 17.4% informal caregivers). Changes in symptoms of depression and anxiety over 2018-2020 surveys associated with sociodemographic factors, caregiving, cohabitation with the care recipient, assistance provided with activities of daily living, support in providing care, and opportunity cost of care were assessed. RESULTS: Increased depression, but not anxiety, was associated with providing informal care. Among caregivers, lower living standards and cohabitation were associated with increased depression. Lower living standards, unemployment, and lower help from friend/family networks were associated with increased anxiety. DISCUSSION: Economic hardship and social capital provide targets for supporting psychological wellbeing of older caregivers during periods of pandemic restrictions.

Conceptualising disaster social capital: what it is, why it matters, and how it can be enhanced.

Social capital discourse occupies an important place in disaster studies. Scholars have adopted various inflections of social capital to explain how those with greater amounts of this crucial resource are generally more resilient to disasters and experience speedier recovery. Disaster scholars have also discovered that people typically display altruistic tendencies in the wake of disasters and develop novel networks of mutual support, known as 'communitas', which is also seen to build resilience and boost recovery. In this paper, we use the work of Pierre Bourdieu to synthesise these literatures, conceptualising communitas as 'disaster social capital'. We offer a fleshed-out definition of disaster social capital to distinguish it from regular social capital and discuss the barriers to, and the enablers of, its formation. While primarily a conceptual discussion, we believe that it has practical and policy value for disaster scholars and practitioners interested in inclusive disaster risk reduction as well as full and just recoveries.

Theorizing disaster communitas.

Disaster scholars have long complained that their field is theory light: they are much better at doing and saying than analyzing. The paucity of theory doubtless reflects an understandable focus on case studies and practical solutions. Yet this works against big picture thinking. Consequently, both our comprehension of social suffering and our ability to mitigate it are fragmented. Communitas is exemplary here. This refers to the improvisational acts of mutual help, collective feeling and utopian desires that emerge in the wake of disasters. It has been observed for as long as there has been a sociology of disasters. Within the field, there have been numerous efforts to name and describe it. Yet there has been far less enthusiasm to theorize it, which means that the disaster literature has not adequately explained the social conditions under which communitas arises (or fails to). In this article, we synthesize numerous case studies to do so. This takes us beyond simple statements of what communitas is and what it should be called, to considerations of the conditions under which it emerges, how it should be conceptualized, the factors that might prevent communitas, and how we might encourage it. While primarily a theoretical work, the identification of communitas' facilitators and barriers have practical import for disaster risk reduction (DRR) policy as communitas has frequently proven to be a positive and potent force.

Exploring Disasters through the Eyes of Residential Nursing Home Caregivers.

Using qualitative interviews, this research explores the experiences of residential nursing home caregivers in Fukushima, who provided support to elderly sufferers of Alzheimer's or other related forms of dementia during the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami. Although the disaster vulnerability of care recipients such as the elderly, infirmed, disabled, and sufferers of dementia have been studied, their caregivers' disaster experiences, vulnerability and resilience have remained comparatively invisible and under-investigated. Their experiences suggest that coping with the disasters as caregivers was complex and unexpected, and it should not be misunderstood to imply that their resilience is predictable and expected.