Children and youth are greatly affected by disasters, and as climate instability leads to more weather-related

disasters, the risks to the youngest members of societies will continue to increase. Children are more likely to
live in risky places, such as floodplains, coastal areas, and earthquake zones, and more likely to be poor than
other groups of people. While children and youth in industrialized countries are experiencing increased risks,
the children and youth in developing countries are the most at risk to disasters.

Children and youth are vulnerable before, during, and after a disaster. In a disaster, many children and youth
experience simultaneous and ongoing disruptions in their families, schooling, housing, health and access to
healthcare, friendships, and other key areas of their lives. Many are at risk to separation from guardians, long-
term displacement, injury, illness, and even death. In disaster planning, there is often an assumption that
parents will protect their children in a disaster event, and yet children are often separated from their parents
when they are at school, childcare centers, home alone, with friends, and at work. Children do not have the
resources or independence to prepare for disasters, so they are often reliant on adults to make evacuation
decisions, secure shelter, and provide resources. Children also may hide or have trouble articulating their
distress to adults after a disaster. In the disaster aftermath, it has been found that children and youth—no
matter how personally resilient—cannot fully recover without the necessary resources and social support.

Social location—such as social class, race, gender, neighborhood, resources, and networks—prior to a
disaster often determines, at least in part, many of the children’s post-disaster outcomes. In other words, age
intersects with many other factors. Girls, for example, are at risk to sexual violence and exploitation in some
disaster aftermath situations. In addition, a child’s experience in a disaster could also be affected by language,
type of housing, immigration status, legal status, and disability issues. Those living in poverty have more
difficulties preparing for disasters, do not have the resources to evacuate, and live in lower quality housing that
is less able to withstand a disaster. Thus, it is crucial to consider the child’s environment before and after the
disaster, to realize that some children experience cumulative vulnerability, or an accumulation of risk factors,
and that disasters may occur on top of other crises, such as drought, epidemics, political instability, violence, or
a family crisis such as divorce or death.

Even as children and youth are vulnerable, they also demonstrate important and often unnoticed capacities,
skills, and strengths, as they assist themselves and others before and after disaster strikes. Frequently,
children are portrayed as helpless, fragile, passive, and powerless. But children and youth are creative social
beings and active agents, and they have played important roles in preparedness activities and recovery for
their families and communities. Thus, both children’s vulnerabilities and capacities in disasters should be a
research and policy priority.

Keywords: children, youth, disaster, vulnerability, resilience, recovery, preparedness, risk

Introduction
The past decade has seen an increased interest in and a surge of new research conducted on the topic of
children, youth, and disaster. This is a welcome change. Prior to this new attention, the topic had not been
widely researched by social scientists and had not been a top research or policy priority, in the United States
and globally.

In 2005, sociologist William Anderson published an influential essay on children and disaster. In it, he lamented
the lack of social science research and attention to children and disaster. He stated clearly: “A simple question
can be raised. Where are children and youths in social science disaster research?” He noted that there was
little mention of children in the hazard field summary volumes, known as the “First Assessment” and “Second
Assessment” (Mileti, 1999) and only discussed in Drabek’s (1986) earlier summary of the disaster field in a
mental health context. Anderson continued:

Thus there is a serious need to find a place for children and youths on the disaster research agenda and to
advance knowledge about this segment of the population. Such knowledge would provide a more complete
understanding of the impact of hazards and disasters on society across the board and result in a firmer basis
for policy and practice. Disaster social scientists should be more committed to determining the extent to which
such social factors as age influence vulnerability and disaster outcomes . . . The knowledge base on children
and disasters is so thin that studies related to children in this context are needed across the entire mitigation,
preparedness, and response and recovery spectrum.
(pp. 161–162)

As Anderson mentioned, the work that had been done had been on this topic had mostly been in a mental
health context. Indeed, most of the research that was conducted in the 20th century on children and disaster
was in the field of psychology and focused on the psychosocial impacts on children in disasters. Many of these
important studies focused on post-traumatic stress disaster (PTSD), were done in the short term of disaster
aftermaths, and were conducted at one point in time. This mental health research played a key role in the
establishment of the field.

After Anderson’s call for attention to this knowledge gap, the field slowly but steadily began to focus on children
and youth in disasters beyond the psychological lens. In the same year, scholars in New Zealand posited that
youth and schools play a large role in community resilience and that collaborative partnerships need to be
developed (Ronan & Johnston, 2005). In 2006, Wisner issued a report on children, education, and disaster risk
reduction from a global perspective, looking at countries around the globe and what they were doing in the
areas of hazards education and risk reduction. Shortly after, there was a special issue on children and disaster
published in the journal Children, Youth and Environment in 2008, and there were notable summary articles on
age and vulnerability in the Social Vulnerability to Disasters textbooks (Peek, 2010, 2013) which covered
children as well as the elderly.

Indeed, in the time since Anderson’s call for more research, especially in the last decade, the social science
field has responded with a surge of new research, varied in methods and contexts. There has been important
research and reports on how children factor into efforts for Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) and Climate Change
Adaptation (CCA), as well as on projects on youth resilience. There have also been a range of methodologies
used, both qualitative and quantitative, including focus groups, interviews, and community participatory
research; and a commitment to put children at the center of the research. Additionally there has been critical
policy work and we have seen important new initiatives, such as the Global Alliance for Disaster Risk
Reduction and Resilience in the Education Sector’s comprehensive school safety framework. The entire field of
children and disaster has evolved dramatically in a short time frame, pushing new ideas in research and policy
to the forefront at the same time children around the globe are facing new challenges rooted in climate
instability.

Children, Youth, and Disaster in the Disaster Life Cycle

This article will present some of the main findings and important issues on how children and youth experience
disasters. This is not an exhaustive review of all literature on the topic; instead, this discussion aims to present
a bird’s eye view of what is known in this area and some of the central questions, ideas, and gaps in this area,
highlighting some of the research that has been conducted. An eight-stage typology will be used to organize
the findings.1 This typology has been used previously to organize research reviews on issues of vulnerability,
inequality, and disasters—specifically gender (Fothergill, 1996), race and ethnicity (Fothergill, Maestas, &
Darlington, 1999), and income inequality and poverty (Fothergill & Peek, 2004). Other disaster scholars also
choose to present findings using similar “disaster life cycle” frameworks (Phillips, Thomas, Fothergill, & Blinn-
Pike, 2010; Thomas, Phillips, Lovekamp, & Fothergill, 2013).

The findings are delineated into the following categories: Risk Perception/Understanding of Hazards,
Preparedness, Warning Communication and Response, Physical Impacts, Psychological Impacts, Emergency
Response, Recovery, and Reconstruction/Risk Reduction. While it is clear that people’s experiences, and the
research conducted on them, do not always fall neatly into “disaster life cycle” categories, this typology has
been found in the past to be useful to organize and make sense of a wide range of studies that use a variety of
methods and have a wide range of scope.
 Click to view larger

Figure 1. Nepal, February 2016. Children helping with recovery from the 2015 earthquake.

Photo courtesy of Alice Fothergill.

Children and youth’s capacities and strengths will also be discussed in each section. Children’s capacities in
the disaster life cycle have been largely overlooked until recently. At the same time that children and youth are
vulnerable, they also demonstrate important and often unnoticed capacities and strengths, as they assist
themselves and others before and after a disaster strikes. Children can play an active role in all stages.
Nepalese children, for example, helped during the recovery and reconstruction periods in their villages, such as
in the village of Bungamati outside of Kathmandu (see Figure 1). As the research on children and youth in
disaster has progressed, there has been increasing attention paid to how children are not just helpless victims,
but also active agents who could be a valuable part of risk reduction and recovery. This attention and
recognition is part of a wider understanding in the sociology of childhood and childhood studies that see
children as active agents. They are able to make important contributions and create peer cultures of their own,
as posited by the childhood sociologist William Corsaro in his work on children (2011). Thus, when data are
available, there will be a discussion of the capacities of children and youth in each section.

Risk Perception/Understanding of Hazards

It is important to understand how children perceive the risk of a hazard in their environment and how it is that
children learn and understand the risks facing their families and communities. Who or what is shaping those
perceptions? What are the factors that play a role in that perception? How does age interact with gender and
other factors to form their risk perception? It is also critical to understand how children and youth’s perception
and understanding of hazards in their communities vary greatly depending on cultural, environmental, political,
and economic factors.

Adults sometimes base their judgments of risks based on their own past experiences; would this be a less
influential factor for children since they have fewer past experiences from which to draw? How would age affect
the reception and personalization process? Would children be more susceptible to the “heuristic of availability”
and think of things as risky that are easy to imagine because of images in social media? Or do children feel that
adults will protect them from harm, so they view hazards as less threatening? Are children and youth more or
less likely to trust the risk information source than adults? We do not yet know the answers to these questions.

Perhaps children perceive threats and risks of hazards in the same way as their parents. This seems logical,
considering what we know about socialization and the way in which children learn attitudes, beliefs, and values
from their parents. And yet, children and youth spend a good deal of time away from their parents—in school,
childcare centers, with friends—and create their own peer cultures and learn from other socialization agents,
such as teachers and the media. Furthermore, children have less control over their lives and less power in
general than adults and that might influence what seems “risky” or not; we have seen in past research that low-
income individuals have heightened levels of risk perception possibly for this reason.
Some research challenges the notion that children and adults share identical perceptions of risk. Based on their
research on El Salvador and the Philippines, Mitchell, Tanner, and Haynes’s (2009) findings suggest that
children have substantially different views on risk than their parents. They found that children showed more
concern about high magnitude, low frequency events, while their parents perceived low magnitude, high
frequency as a greater worry. In thinking of capacities, the researchers state that if children and youth are able
to address the low magnitude, high frequency events in their communities, it gives them greater confidence in
their abilities and allows them to see themselves as agents of change. In addition, they argue that in El
Salvador they found that children have a “clear and uncluttered view about risks” (p. 263), and take an all-risk
approach; in their lists of hazards, the children included environmental hazards as well as rape, alcoholism, and
not receiving enough love and care. In Indonesia, children created a more extensive list of disaster risk than
adults, demonstrating an understanding of a broader range of risks, and they were better able to recall disaster
events that took place in their lifetime than their parents were (Haynes, Lassa, & Towers, 2010).

Babugura (2008) found that children in Botswana learned about the risk of drought from school, their parents,
and their friends. She found that their perceptions were mostly based in scientific knowledge and were
generally well-informed. Children in many communities, it appears, learn a lot about hazards in the school
setting, and in some cases pass that information on o their families. In research on Zimbabwe by Mudavanhu
and colleagues (2015), children were found to be effective risk communicators; adults reported that they got
their risk information from their school-age children. In addition to passing information on to their parents, they
distributed disaster pamphlets to their communities and helped with the distribution of chlorine tablets during a
cholera outbreak. Wisner (2006) argues that children should learn about risks in their communities and schools
by doing hands-on curriculum in their schools. This, he states, should include children and youth inspecting
their own schools, mapping out the area, and interviewing elders about past extreme natural events. Many
others have also pointed out the effectiveness of hazard mapping exercises with children.

Past research has found that there are gender differences in risk perception for adults, so it may be that those
gender differences also are present for children and youth. Women, for example, are more likely to perceive a
disaster event or threat as risky or threatening than men, and they are particularly likely to perceive a risk as
more threatening if it affects their children. Some of this thinking suggests that men and adolescent boys might
have a tendency to be more risk taking, and women and girls may be more risk averse; but this may be context
and culturally specific and should not be accepted out of hand. In a study in Indonesia, gender differences in
risk perception were found when children were asked for their risk priorities. Girls ranked landslides as the top
risk priority because they would cause the most damage, while boys ranked flooding as the top priority because
they could deal with that hazard more easily (Haynes et al., 2010).

Another issue for consideration is whether children and youth should be shielded from information about risks.
It is understandable that adults do not want to scare children with information about disasters that may or may
not occur; yet, research finds that the information is not frightening or paralyzing, depending on how it is
presented. It could even be empowering to learn about risks and then how they can be mitigated. Children, for
example, are taught risks of cars and bicycles, and can even be the family enforcers of seat belts and helmets,
and about diseases transmitted from mosquitos, and learn to mitigate that risk without producing paralyzing
fear. The amount of information about particular hazards that is shared with children, depending on the context,
might depend on the child’s age and culture. Taken as a whole, it is clear that we have made some progress
recently on this topic, but it is crucial that we learn more about this in the future.

Preparedness Behavior
Preparedness behavior is a broad category and includes activities such as identifying evacuation routes,
performing safety drills, mitigating homes and schools, gathering and storing emergency supplies, being trained
for disaster response, and working on disaster risk reduction projects. Some argue that children are not
included in many preparedness activities, they are not in emergency planning groups, and do not make
decisions about how to prepare (see, for example, Mort, Walker, Williams, Bingley, & Howells, 2016). Others
point out that preparedness programs to reduce the vulnerability of children are taking place in many countries
around the globe, and how children and youth can and should have a significant role in preparedness (see for
example Mitchell et al., 2009). In the United States, for example, there are programs at the state and federal
level, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has designed preparedness materials for
teachers and children and has resources accessible on their website.
A cornerstone of preparedness is making sure children have safe, sound school structures. Shaw and
Kobayashi (2001) argue for the importance of the earthquake-safer construction of schools, such as retrofitting,
but they also argue for this to happen in a participatory way making sure local communities and governments
are involved. The School Earthquake Safety Initiative, a program by the United Nations, promotes self-help,
cooperation, and education as the core of disaster mitigation. In Nepal, Indonesia, India, and Uzbekistan, they
found that disaster education in schools can create a culture of prevention and mitigation throughout the
community. Safer schools save lives, and also can serve as temporary shelters after an earthquake or other
disaster. Shaw and Kobayashi (2001) like many other scholars around the world, are concerned with schools
that are built rapidly without proper seismic design. They found that in Kathmandu Valley in Nepal that the
majority of the schools needed retrofitting and none of the public schools had any emergency response plans.

There has been some attention paid to school-age children and preparedness. Researchers Johnston, Ronan,
and Standring (2014), evaluated the effectiveness of disaster preparedness education in New Zealand’s
schools and examined the implementation of the national teaching resource “What’s the Plan, Stan?” designed
for ages 7–12. Ronan, Alisic, Towers, Johnson, and Johnston (2015) conducted comprehensive, critical review
of disaster preparedness programs for children, and they found that many existing programs had positive
effects on various risk reduction and resilience preparedness indicators, but they feel more research is needed.
One recommendation for New Zealand was the establishment of a National School Earthquake Exercise Day.
Tipler, Tarrant, Tuffin, and Johnston (2016) found that legislation for preparedness in New Zealand schools
was ambiguous and that schools needed more clear disaster risk reduction guidance and emergency
preparedness benchmarks. In some villages in India, children are trained in first aid, search and rescue, and
warnings, using role-playing, posters, mapping activities, mock drills, and making lists of all children in each
village. In fact, the children’s favorite class was learning to bandage the arms, faces, and legs of their friends.
Also, teams of children are chosen to be trained to broadcast warnings and guide people into cyclone
structures (Nikku, Karkara, & Ahmed, 2006).

There is very little research on preschool age children, such as those in childcare settings, and preparedness.
Large numbers of children attend childcare centers and in-home childcare programs and it is unclear if
childcare settings are prepared for disasters. In Colorado, a study by Prelog and colleagues (2014) found that
while 93% of childcare providers in that state have a disaster preparedness plan, 83% of them have no budget
for disaster preparedness activities. In Florida, research found that many childcare centers at risk to hurricanes
were not well prepared; many did not have a written hurricane response plan (Wilson & Kershaw, 2008).
Around the United States, because of recent changes to the federal Administration for Children and Families
(ACF) regulations, childcare centers are in the process of improving their all-hazard planning, including
requiring plans and training of staff. Future research should review these policy changes to measure whether
they have increased preparedness.

Overall, reports from all over the globe have shown that children and youth can have a positive role in the
preparedness activities of their households, schools, and communities. They may translate preparedness
materials to their family members who do not speak the dominant language, they can identify escape routes,
and they can help stock supplies. In the Gulf Coast, children and youth helped with numerous preparedness
activities before Hurricane Katrina (Fothergill & Peek, 2015). In El Salvador, youth participate in youth
emergency preparedness brigades and receive disaster prevention training, which may include emergency
drills and sanitation campaigns (Fordham, 2009). Children and youth are an enormous resource in this stage of
a disaster and the more they can be trained and brought into preparedness activities, the safer they and their
communities will be in a disaster. Unfortunately, adults do not always understand this, as seen in Indonesia
when men were asked what girls could do in their village to reduce disasters; some responded that girls just
scream and are frightened (Haynes et al., 2010). In England and Wales, where there is no systematic flood
education in schools, children asked to learn more about floods—how to make flood plans, for example—and
identified it as a priority for their resilience (Mort et al., 2016).

Warning Communication and Response

The warning communication and response stage usually includes the dissemination and receiving of disaster
warnings, such as tornado and flood sirens or emergency broadcasts, and actions taken as a result, such as
evacuation. Who is likely to receive this important risk communication? And who is going to respond with
protective actions? Do warnings reach children? Overall, it can be said that there is very little known about
children, youth, and warning communication and response, and more attention should be given to this topic in
the future.

Most children and youth are dependent on adults in their lives to communicate the risk and to instruct them or
assist them with the appropriate response, especially if they are young. These adults could be parents,
guardians, teachers, or childcare providers. There is an assumption that parents will take care of children when
there are warnings or protective actions needed, and this is often the case. However, it is important to keep in
mind that many children are not with their parents when disasters occur. Many are at school, jobs, with friends,
at childcare centers or babysitters’ homes, or in self-care.

In general, the presence of children at home often leads to evacuation when disaster looms. Research has
found that families with children in the home are more likely to evacuate in times of disaster. In Hurricane
Katrina, children’s presence prompted adults to evacuate more often and earlier than they would have without
them. However, this was true for families who had the resources to evacuate—a working vehicle, money for
gas and lodging, for example. There was evidence that families with children who wanted to evacuate but did
not have the means to do so, took other protective measures (Fothergill & Peek, 2015). An important issue to
consider is households that have both children and pets. Family pets in some countries are considered
members of the family, and children especially are opposed to being separated from them in times of crisis.
Thus, families are reluctant to leave pets behind in a disaster, and this could hinder evacuation in some cases.
Indeed, one of the most significant reasons people do not evacuate in a disaster is that they do not want to
leave their pets, and this is especially true in households with children.

Children often learn how to effectively respond to a disaster from the adults in their schools. In 9/11, for
example, teachers played a critical role in evacuation. There is some evidence that the teaching of protective
actions must be taught carefully and in the full context of the situation. In Nepal in the 2015 earthquake,
children ran into schools even though school was not in session so that they could hide under their desks,
which they had been taught was the safest place for them in an earthquake. They did not understand that they
were safer outside and were carefully following what they had been taught. Many of these children perished.
This same behavior was also seen during earthquakes and aftershocks in New Zealand. In addition to schools
for older children (ages 5–18), attention is needed on the youngest children, from birth to age five. Many of
these very young children are in the care of childcare centers or home providers, many of which do not have
all-hazard evacuation plans and do not practice drills.

One area for future consideration concerns additional differences among children and youth. Are there gender
and class differences with children and warnings and response? Most likely yes, but more research is needed.
Past research has found gender differences: Women are more likely to hear and believe warnings than men
are and interpret them as valid and respond more to warnings than men, often because of their social
networks. As many young children are often with their mothers, this might have a direct bearing on children.
Thinking about ability status, children and youth with disabilities may be at particular risk because they may not
be able to take protective actions, such as crawling under their desks, or running to higher ground (Peek &
Stough, 2010).

Turning to capacities, children can be helpful during the warning and evacuation phase. Children are often
educated about risks at school and bring that information home. Children can be a calming presence as a
disaster looms. Children can help prepare younger siblings, pack up belongings, and do specific chores for
their parents as the family prepares to evacuate. In the days and hours before Hurricane Katrina, children and
youth took on various responsibilities to help their families evacuate (Fothergill & Peek, 2015). Often children
can be the translators of warnings for family members who do not speak the dominant language. In New
Zealand, children know to watch for natural warning signs for tsunamis, learning the slogan “Long, Strong, Be
Gone” meaning that if the earthquake is lasts more than a minute and makes them fall down, then they need to
get to higher ground immediately.

Physical Impacts
Research on injury, disease, and fatality rates finds that children and youth suffer tremendous physical impacts
around the globe in disasters.
Children and youth suffer physically particularly when they are in structures, such as schools or homes that
collapse or are badly damaged or destroyed. The data show high fatalities for children and youth in schools,
many of which have been poorly constructed. One of the earliest examples on record of this was the aptly
named “Children’s Blizzard” in 1888 in the Midwestern United States. The fierce and unexpected storm
descended on children as they walked home from school or as they huddled in poorly constructed schools;
scores of children died or lost their limbs (Laskin, 2004). In the almost 130 years since then, there have been
numerous accounts of children dying in their poorly constructed schools. The statistics that have emerged from
many disasters are staggering. The earthquake in China in 2008, for example, killed 10,000 children, and many
of them were in their schools that collapsed, most likely due to poor construction (Wong, 2008). The school
tragedies around the globe have led many to question the soundness of the construction of the buildings and
whether governments are to blame, as in some cases schools have collapsed but other buildings around the
schools have remained standing. In China, there was widespread outcry over the collapsed schools and many
demanded that the government take responsibility for the deaths of the children.

Related to the poor construction, schools are often also located in risky locations, such as floodplains, hillsides,
and tsunami zones. In the U.S. west coast, for example, many schools are located in dangerous tsunami
zones. In some locations in Washington state, residents voted against moving their schools even though they
are in the tsunami zone, and decided to keep the schools where they are despite the fact that there is no safe
evacuation route for most of the schools in case of a tsunami. However, in Westport, Washington, the Ocosta
Elementary School was designed to have a tsunami shelter on top of the school gym, large enough for the
students and many town residents.

After some disasters, communities realize that timing saved lives, as earthquakes occurred during non-school
hours, and their schools did not fare well. In 1933 in California, a 6.3 magnitude earthquake struck on a Friday
afternoon, just a few hours after schools were let out for the day. More than 230 schools had major damage or
were destroyed or were deemed too unsafe to occupy (Olson, 1998; State of California, 2007). The poorly
designed buildings had not been built to withstand earthquakes. This type of wake-up call has occurred in other
places. More recently, in 2015, the 7.8 Ghorka Earthquake hit Nepal on a Saturday morning, when children and
their families were largely outside, working and playing; they would have perished inside their schools had it
been a school day. Nepalese felt that it was a miracle that the earthquake occurred on a weekend day. Wisner
(2006) examined this phenomenon of the “luck” of disasters occurring when children are not in schools—either
it was a holiday or weekend, during the night, or when children were out to recess. In his work, Wisner provides
a chart of all the disasters that have fallen in this “lucky” category where fatalities could have been much
higher.

Unfortunately, many children and youth and their families are not so fortunate. Some studies have shed light on
how and why children and youth suffer tremendously from the physical impacts of disasters. Mudavanhu and
colleagues (2015) examined children in Zimbabwe, a country faced with multiple disasters: floods, droughts,
fires, epidemics, and the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Often they are interconnected. In 2007, for example, floods in
one region led to malaria and diarrheal disease that affected over 1000 families. Their research highlights the
physical impacts of disaster on children. Here they describe the children in their study:

About 75% of children who participated in the study have seen their houses and school infrastructure collapse,
have lost their livelihoods, and have suffered either from malaria, cholera, dysentery, or diarrhoea due to
flooding. Children described their experiences during floods as a time when houses collapse, rivers overflow,
bridges are swept away, roads become slippery and unusable, animals drown, there is an outbreak of disease,
and food becomes scarce at the same time contaminated water is widespread. About 80% of children had tried
to cross flooded rivers, missed school, and experienced separation from parents during flooding.

This excerpt exemplifies the numerous risks that children face and how hazards intersect and multiply, such as
the emergence of disease after disasters. Along these lines, children are also at particular risk to exposure to
toxins that can damage their growing bodies. Thus we need to consider children’s exposure to sewage,
asbestos, contamination, oil, chemicals as well as black mold and mildew, which may appear in flooded
buildings. In Japan after the 2011 earthquake-tsunami-nuclear accident, children were at risk to radiation, yet
many fathers put employment and economic stability ahead of their children’s health (Morioka, 2014). After
Hurricane Katrina, children and youth were at risk to exposure to a variety of environmental contaminants, such
as at their playgrounds and parks (Figure 2).
 Click to view larger

Figure 2. New Orleans, 2005. Children’s playground after Hurricane Katrina.

Photo courtesy of Alice Fothergill.

Other issues of social vulnerability are also factors. Social class, gender, race, and ability status affect
children’s vulnerability to physical impacts. Past research has found that the morbidity and mortality rates for
female children are often higher than for boys in developing countries, even though girls have physiological
advantages over boys. This is often the result of discrimination toward females. Children in developing
countries, especially the poorest children, appear to be the most vulnerable to death and injury. Children with
disabilities are also seen as being more at risk to the physical impacts of disasters as they are unable to take
many of the necessary protective actions.

Physical impacts also include illness, starvation, and undernutrition. For example, in a study in rural Eastern
India, researchers found that children in flooded communities that were repeatedly flooded had a higher
incidence of wasting, that is, becoming weak and emaciated and greatly undernourished (Rodriguez-Llanes,
Manuel, Ranjan-Dash, Mukhopadhyay, & Guha-Sapir, 2016). The cases of severe wasting were over three
times higher for the children aged six months to just under five years of age in the repeatedly flooded
communities than those in non-flooded communities. Another physical impact is child abuse and neglect, which
is of grave concern and needs more attention (Curtis, Miller, & Berry, 2000). One study found increased
traumatic brain injury among children two years old or younger after Hurricane Floyd (Keenan, Marshall,
Nocera, & Runyan, 2004).

The physical impacts that have been documented in disasters are numerous and complicated. One important
thing to consider is that children are often present when other children are injured, and thus some of the
strategies in some parts of the world to train children, even young children, in first aid and emergency response
might allow children to save others. It is important to note here that children and youth can have a role in
minimizing or preventing grave physical injuries or death. They take actions that save others in disasters. In
New Zealand in 2017, for example, two teen brothers rescued a woman, a toddler, and a dog when the levees
in their town of Edgecumbe broke suddenly during heavy rains. Wisner (2006) points out the children who
learned about disasters in schools were able to save lives when they struck.

Psychological Impacts
Research has shown that disasters have psychological impacts on children and youth, often greater than
adults. In many ways we know more about this aspect of children and disaster than the other dimensions in this
eight-category model. Data support the idea that emotional impacts on children vary by age, disaster exposure,
and level of support from parents and other adults. Furthermore, when adults are suffering from emotional
distress, depression, PTSD, they often cannot meet the needs of their children, and the children themselves
may exhibit the symptoms. It is important to point out that because of the widespread stigmatization of mental
health problems, many survivors are hesitant to admit these impacts or receive treatment for them.

One of the most significant and often cited contributions to this discussion was the extensive literature review of
250 studies done by Norris, Friedman, and Watson (2002) and Norris, Friedman, Watson, Byrne et al. (2002).
They included published quantitative studies done from 1981–2001 on acute, collectively experienced, sudden
onset disasters. The majority of the studies were single post-disaster assessments. They found that school-age
children had been more negatively affected by disasters than adults, stating “samples composed of youth were
more likely to fall into the severe range of impairment than samples of adults” (Norris, Friedman, &
Watson, 2002, p. 218). They do note, however, that the results are not clear for preschool aged children. When
examining youth and ethnicity, youth from the majority ethnic groups were more likely to fare better, but the
authors admit there is little information on this topic. The research team also found that disaster location
mattered for the youth outcomes: severe or very severe impairment was observed more often in developing
countries than developed countries, and disaster type made a difference as there were more negative
outcomes in situations of mass violence than natural or technological disasters. For both children and adults, in
general the samples improved as time passed.

In addition, Norris and colleagues found that family factors played a significant role. Studies concluded that if a
child had a distressed parent, he or she was more likely to be distressed and the “less irritable and more
supportive parents had healthier children, and parents with less psychopathology offered more support” (Norris,
Friedman, & Watson, 2002, p. 237). Indeed, they state that parental distress is sometimes the strongest
predictor of their children’s distress. Others since then agree with this conclusion (Ronan et al., 2008).

Other studies have also documented the psychological challenges faced by children and youth in disasters.
Abramson, Park, Stehling-Ariza, and Redlener (2010) found that children exposed to Hurricane Katrina were
nearly five times as likely as a pre-Katrina cohort to have serious emotional disturbance. Some studies on
children and youth in disasters have found that they are often worried, afraid, and stressed after a disaster (see
for example, Babugura, 2008; La Greca, Silverman, Vernberg, & Roberts, 2002; Mudavanhu et al., 2015). They
are afraid of being separated from their families, upset about missing school, stressed by new conflicts in their
families, and sometimes overwhelmed by the amount of work expected and needed from them (Mudavanhu et
al., 2015). In The Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011, researchers found that children were especially
vulnerable in terms of mental health, and it was particularly difficult to reach them and help them because of the
stigma surrounding mental illness in that area (Kozu & Homma, 2014). Research in India found that a
community that was hit with heavy rains, glacier melting, flash flooding, landslides, and mudslides experienced
deaths, food shortages, ruined temples, and contaminated water supplies. This situation caused post-disaster
stress disorder (PTSD) in adolescents (Watts, 2014).

Children’s reactions can be negatively affected by the degree of exposure to the disaster event—how life
threatening, how much they saw and experienced, the intensity of it—and how upset and distraught their
parents are in the aftermath. Furthermore, other family factors may also decrease a child’s emotional health
such as family conflict, parents’ substance abuse, ineffective discipline, and low levels of warmth (Ronan &
Johnston, 2005). The age of the child might also play a role in psychological reactions and how they are
expressed. In a study of school-age children in Hurricane Hugo, the younger children were more likely to report
PTSD symptoms than older children (Shannon, Lonigan, Finch, & Taylor, 1994).

In addition, there is some indication that the death of a family pet, or even a missing family pet in a disaster,
can be deeply distressing to children. In Hurricane Katrina, hundreds of families were not allowed to bring their
animals when they were rescued by boat or helicopter, or when evacuated from the Superdome in New
Orleans because they would not let animals on public transportation, causing great anguish. It is reported that
15,000 animals were rescued from New Orleans (Irvine, 2009). In the United States, 70% of households have
dogs or cats, so this may be an important issue to consider when thinking of children’s emotional health in a
disaster.

Some research finds gender differences in how psychological impacts are experienced, expressed, or
conveyed. Shannon and colleagues (1994) found that after Hurricane Hugo in the United States boys reported
more behavior issues, while girls, especially African American girls, reported more emotional distress. Norris,
Friedman, and Watson (2002) found that females—including children, adolescents, and adults—were more
adversely affected; indeed, after some disasters women and girls were at least twice as likely to develop PTSD
as men and boys. Babugura (2008) found that both boys and girls were upset to see dead livestock during
droughts. Some of the boys in her study were responsible for herding livestock and watching the cows die was
disturbing and upsetting to them. One 13-year-old admitted that he cried for a long time when the cow he was
caring for died in the drought.
We may not have all the information we need about children and psychological impacts, as parents might
underreport their children’s levels of post-disaster distress. In some cases, parents are so consumed with
finding housing and food that they are not aware or have to overlook their children’s psychological needs
(Mudavanhu et al., 2015). Sometimes children do not tell their parents about their emotional distress or anxiety
because they do not want to burden their parents, as described by Fothergill and Peek (2015):

Children sometimes tell adults what they think they want to hear, rather than what they actually feel or believe.
They may also withhold information to “protect” their parents. As a case in point, Mekana, one of the teens in
our study, said she would “hide” her true emotions and hold her “feelings in” when she was around her mom. In
the months following Katrina, her mother was angry and struggled with depression. Mekana eventually reached
a point where she would simply tell her mother, “I do not feel like talking about this,” so that she could avoid
crying or “being all sad” in front of her.

(p. 5)

Many children are not proactive in talking about their emotional distress with adults in their families, but adults
also may not ask children and youth about how they are feeling, and there is an assumption that the children
will adapt to the difficult situations after disasters (Babugura, 2008). This reasoning is related to the widely held
myth that children are resilient, like little rubber balls that can just “bounce back” after a disaster without support
(Fothergill & Peek, 2015). Thus, this would lead to the parents underreporting the children’s levels of emotional
distress.

Research has found that children and youth do well with support, consistency, and warmth in a disaster
situation from their parents and other significant adults in their lives (Ronan & Johnston, 2005). After the
Canterbury earthquakes of 2010–2012 in New Zealand, Mooney and colleagues (2017) found that children
coped effectively by using strategies such as emotional regulation, problem solving, and positive reframing.
They also found that the children indicated an increase in empathy and a desire to help others. New to the field
is the idea that children and youth themselves are sometimes able to provide critical emotional support and
warmth to one another. They are able to empathize with their peers, provide comfort to their younger siblings,
and be a listening ear to other children and youth. They also provide emotional support to adults, as noted by
parents whose children gave them extra hugs, sang to them, and reassured them (Fothergill & Peek, 2015).

Emergency Response
The emergency response period is the immediate aftermath, the first minutes, hours, and days after a disaster,
perhaps even up to a week, depending on the type and severity of the disaster event. There are several
important considerations about children in this stage. First, what is the experience of children in the emergency
response in general and specifically in emergency shelters? How are their needs met and how are they kept
safe? Second, children need to stay with parents and guardians, but what happens if they are separated?
Additionally, we need to consider children and youth’s safety in the disaster scene, their access to medical
services, separation from friends and extended family members, and the specific challenges faced by children
with disabilities.

When a disaster strikes, children often take protective actions, such as finding and depending on adults,
seeking information, and helping others. Norwegian teens and children who were caught in the 2004 Southeast
Asian Tsunami in Thailand used various coping strategies in the immediate aftermath. These included positive
thoughts, such as telling themselves there would not be another earthquake or that they were safe in the
jungle, and self-soothing behaviors, such as holding onto adults or giving first aid to others (Jensen, Ellestad, &
Dyb, 2013). In some cases, children are separated from their families or guardians in the emergency response
phase. This occurred in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and many children were not reunited with parents
for weeks or months. In addition, many children and youth were with one parent but not their second parent or
extended families in the response period (Fothergill & Peek, 2015).

Many children move to mass shelters during the response phase. Children placed in evacuee shelters might
face various hazards as many shelters are not designed as child-safe spaces. Some shelters contain multiple
hazards such as dangerous chemicals, open electrical outlets, missing smoke detectors, and open tubs of
water that are a drowning hazard for young children. In addition to safety, children staying in shelters need
stability, routine, and continuation of education. Children can enroll in local schools and school buses can pick
them up at the mass temporary shelters, as was done after Hurricane Katrina (Fothergill & Peek, 2015).

Research finds that there may be gender differences in this stage. Older girls are often expected to help take
care of younger siblings and take on other caregiving responsibilities (Fothergill & Peek, 2015). Babugura
(2008) finds that boys and girls are both taken out of school in droughts, but because girls have a heavier
workload in the family, including collecting water for the household and caring for siblings, they are more likely
to miss school than boys. Both boys and girls have fears of being separated from their families during drought
disasters. In addition, research has found that women and girls in lower income countries have faced
discrimination and abuse in the immediate aftermath of disaster. They receive less food; medical services; face
greater safety risks; and have fewer rights, protections, and resources. They may be victims of family violence,
and rape and assault by strangers. There is growing concern about the trafficking of girls and child marriage in
the chaos of the post-disaster emergency period.

In addition, research indicates that children and youth’s experiences and outcomes in the emergency response
might be affected by their race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, immigration status, and ability status. Past
research has shown that the poor and people of color in the United States encounter difficulties in the response
phase, due to where they live, language issues, issues of cultural sensitivity, isolation of neighborhoods or rural
areas, fears of government and other institutions, and bias that leads some to receive less emergency
assistance than others. In light of that, some children face greater difficulties and vulnerabilities in the response
period. Children with disabilities may encounter inaccessible shelters, improperly trained staff, and
discrimination (Peek & Stough, 2010). In some countries, children may be at risk to rushed and corrupt inter-
country adoption. After the Haiti 2010 earthquake, safeguards and procedures were not followed and
“expedited” adoptions did not allow for the children’s adoptability to be clearly established, did not give adoptive
countries and parents a chance to prepare, and did not provide children sufficient time to recover in a familiar
environment (Dambach & Baglietto, 2010).

There is evidence that children and youth have capacities in the emergency response. Depending on their age
and the circumstances, children and youth could help with search and rescue, organization, information sharing
and coordination on social media, and other tasks. In Hurricane Katrina, there were numerous examples of
children assisting adults, other children, and themselves in the emergency response. One child put his uncle on
a mattress and pulled him through floodwaters to safety, while another boy helped to rescue his sister from
their apartment when the waters rose and they needed to escape (Fothergill & Peek, 2015). In New Zealand,
after the Christchurch earthquakes, a “student army” of assistance-minded youth used social media to organize
response teams all over the city. The youth, many of them university students, engaged in helping activities
such as cleaning up soil liquefaction in the streets. In Nepal, it was found that children were able to provide
more accurate and realistic assessments of damage and how many people were affected because unlike
adults, the children were not politically influenced (Nikku, Sah, Karkara, & Ahmed, 2006).

Recovery
What is recovery and what does it look like? The definition of the concept is not agreed upon. Bill Anderson
(2005) argued that if we look at children and youth in our research we might go further in our understanding of
the concept of recovery. Often, recovery is seen as a process that begins to lead a community back to
“normal.” Anderson (2005) raised these important questions:

There is another line of research involving questions related to recovery that might also be worthwhile pursuing.
For example, how do children perceive recovery? Is it when they return to school, their homes have been
repaired or replaced, and their parents (or other significant others) have returned to their jobs or their places of
business?
 Click to view larger

Figure 3. Three post-disaster trajectories.

Reprinted with permission from Children of Katrina(University of Texas Press, 2015).

Fothergill and Peek offer this definition of children’s recovery (2015, p. 32):

we conceptualize children’s recovery as when a child has a semblance of stability, routine, well-being, and
predictability in all spheres of life. With that in mind, we fully acknowledge that there are many children living at
the margins of society before disaster strikes, who live a daily existence lacking any stability, sense of routine,
or predictability.

After Hurricane Katrina, children and youth followed one of three primary and divergent post-disaster
trajectories (see Figure 3): a Declining Trajectory, a Finding Equilibrium Trajectory, and a Fluctuating
Trajectory (Fothergill & Peek, 2015). For many children, primarily those with preexisting disadvantages, their
vulnerability factors tended to build over time and resulted in cumulative vulnerability. Other children, those who
found equilibrium, were able to find stability because they had the greatest resource depth—financial, social,
cultural, educational, and personal—and were able to use their family’s social and cultural capital effectively.
The third group of children experienced a mixed pattern of stable and then unstable periods, due to a variety of
factors including access to resources, previous vulnerability, and the presence of anchors who keep the
children from falling through the cracks.

Children’s trajectories in recovery were most powerfully influenced by economic, social, and structural factors
that disadvantaged (or advantaged) these children and their families both before and after Katrina. These
forces affected their ability to find equilibrium, even though there was evidence that many of the children and
youth were strong, resilient, hardworking, proactive, and used many creative problem-solving skills to cope and
find solutions for themselves and their families. A child—regardless of individual traits or how “resilient”—
cannot recover from a disaster without the necessary resources and social structural support.

Displacement is very difficult for children, as they have to move to new homes, enter new schools, make new
friends, and they sometimes encounter new culture, food, and climate (Fothergill & Peek, 2015). Displacement,
especially multiple displacements, often leads children and youth to miss school, which can have long lasting
negative consequences. Schools and teachers can play a tremendous role for children and youth in the
recovery period. Schools can implement important post-disaster curriculum and provide the day-to-day routine
that children need. Teachers are instrumental in not only using this curriculum, but helping students as they
recover. Teachers may be in “host communities” that are integrating displaced children into their classrooms,
which presents unique challenges, or they may be in the disaster-affected community, teaching an entire
classroom of affected children, who are perhaps dealing with the loss of homes, family members,
neighborhoods. Many teachers themselves are displaced or dealing with loss at the same time. For children
who evacuate from a disaster area and start new schools, the connections at the new school are critical. After
Katrina, students did well if they felt attached to their new school and if they got positive support from adults at
their new school and their friends (Barrett, Martinez-Cosio, & Barron Ausbrooks, 2008; Fothergill &
Peek, 2015).
Community leaders need to prioritize schools in recovery, as they are important to both children and
communities. In Christchurch, New Zealand, despite citizen protests, locally elected school boards were
excluded from the decisions made about schools in the disaster recovery. The Ministry of Education decided to
merge and close many schools in the aftermath, a move that Bronwyn Hayward (2016) called “especially
destructive” because young people need their schools and the social networks and support they provide. She
stated that it was “deeply disturbing” that the officials seized on an overwhelmed and grieving community to
rush through controversial policies. She states that children and teens in that area continue to suffer from high
rates of mental illness and youth suicide (p. 3).

Children can play an active role in recovery and listening to children’s voices, and supporting their involvement
in recovery activities should be a priority. In Hurricane Katrina, children and youth helped other children, adults,
and themselves, such as writing in journals and engaging in art (Fothergill & Peek, 2015). Vietnamese youth
assisted in the Katrina recovery by translating materials and announcements, such as the location of relief
centers, for their non-English speaking family members, and organizing against a landfill being planned for their
neighborhood (Mitchell, Haynes, Hall, Choong, & Oven, 2008). In Nepal, children raised money for flood and
landslide victims by singing door to door, and in India, after the 2004 tsunami, children did peer counseling and
utilized game and laughter therapy with other children (Nikku et al., 2006). In New Zealand, teenagers felt that
helping their community after the Canterbury earthquakes gave them a feeling of purpose and a sense of
control (Pine, Tarrant, Lyons, & Leathem, 2015). As seen in Figure 4, children in the United States helped with
recovery efforts after Hurricane Irene, such as these Vermont children sorting donated items.

Click to view larger

Figure 4. Vermont, 2011. Children helping in the recovery from Tropical Storm Irene.

Photo courtesy of Alice Fothergill.

Reconstruction/Risk Reduction
This section addresses reconstruction, rebuilding, and disaster risk reduction (DRR). This stage brings us back
full circle to risk perception, understanding of hazards, preparedness, and mitigation. Rebuilding goes hand in
hand with preparing for the future. As some have stated there is a “window of opportunity” for change in the
disaster aftermath and often that window happens as communities reconstruct and decide to “build back”
differently, with new priorities and new understandings of vulnerabilities.

In terms of children and vulnerability, often what we see in this stage is the discussion of how can we
reconstruct in a way that reduces the risk to children in the future. This has been seen in the past with school
reconstruction. For example, the 1933 earthquake in Southern California destroyed many school structures.
The California legislature, with astonishing speed during the “window of opportunity,” passed a new law (The
Field Act) requiring schools to be earthquake resistant (Olson, 1998; State of California, 2007). Since then,
post-earthquake studies find that the legislation worked and new schools built under the Field Act have
withstood subsequent earthquakes far better and saved lives and had lower reconstruction costs. Not a single
public school building built under the Field Act has collapsed and no one has died in any earthquakes, due to
the seismic design and strict inspection. Similarly, after the 1888 “Children’s Blizzard” in the Midwestern United
States where many children died in their schools, communities decided to rebuild their schools to better protect
students from storms (Laskin, 2004). In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the U.S. Congress and former
President George W. Bush established the National Commission on Children and Disasters in an effort to
prepare for future disasters and decrease the losses of children by establishing new policies and procedures,
such as child tracking and child reunification plans. However, most of the goals of the commission have not
been met.

In addition, other school preparedness measures are put into place in disaster reconstruction, such as teacher
education, curriculum changes, establishing safety drills, and innovative projects and programs. In Australia
after the 2009 bushfires in Victoria, the Department of Education put into place several teacher training
programs, designed to develop teacher skills to help students in future disaster (Trethowan & Nursey, 2015). In
New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, it was found that an “Edible Schoolyard” project was an important part of
long-term recovery and reconstruction for children and youth, their families, the teachers, and the community
around the school (Fakharzadeh, 2015). This unique school gardening program helped with the children’s food
environmental knowledge, food security, and overall well-being. The children learned how to grow food, cook
meals, understand the ideas of sustainability, and they often invited residents of the neighborhood for a
community sit-down meal.

Children and youth themselves can play a large and important role in the reconstruction stage and should be
involved in post-disaster planning when possible. In Zimbabwe, one study found that children wanted to be
engaged and help their families reduce disaster impacts. Many hoped to educate the community about
deforestation risks and some even wished for their families to relocate to safer areas (Mudavanhu et al., 2015).
However, this study found that the adults admitted that they do not seek children’s views and do not have
children participate in DRR related activities. Children said that they were not respected, listened to, or taken
seriously, and adults do not ever involve them in the decision-making processes. Some of the adults felt that
they wanted to protect them and not put them under any pressure.

When given the opportunity, children and youth can spearhead important reconstruction and disaster risk
reduction measures. Mitchell and colleagues (2009) found that high school students in the Philippines led a
campaign to have their school moved away from a landslide prone location. With education and advocacy, the
youth were able to win a community-wide referendum to move the school to a safe place. Children and youth
often wish to talk about what they went through and are happy to contribute to the process of planning for the
next disaster. After Hurricane Katrina, children and youth wanted to share their stories about their experiences,
such as their harrowing escapes, the loss of their homes (see Figure 5), and the long and difficult
displacements specifically so that they can reduce the risk to and suffering of other children in future disasters
(Fothergill & Peek, 2015).

Click to view larger

Figure 5. New Orleans, 2015. A family’s home 10 years after Hurricane Katrina. All that remains are the front
steps.

Photo courtesy of Alice Fothergill.

Conclusion
In 2005, Bill Anderson called for more research on what “disasters do to children” in terms of their health,
education, and employment (especially in poor countries), and recovery. He stated that “The disaster research
community, then, should cast its net wider in order to include a younger catch” (p. 163). This was sage advice.
In many ways, since he expressed that view over a decade ago, the disaster research community has been
casting its net wider and has indeed been including a younger catch.

Scholars from around the globe have been focusing more intently on the experiences of children and youth in
disasters and the field has grown and become more diverse in methods, research questions, and perspectives.
For example, there is new recognition of the importance of children in DRR plans and projects and more
understanding of the challenges of displacement. There has been more attention to the crucial role of schools
and childcare centers for teaching children about hazards and making schools the center point of creating a
culture of safety and prevention. There has been documentation of the importance of providing support to
immediate family members in order to assist children, and recognition that many children also need their
friends, extended families, and advocates in the wider community. There has been the emergence of research
methods designed to place children more at the center of the research, aiming to hear their voices and ideas
more clearly. The field is also placing children’s experiences in a broader cultural and socioeconomic context.

The field of children and disaster is also documenting how poverty increases vulnerability before, during, and
after a disaster. Worldwide, and in the United States, children make up the majority of those living in poverty. It
is estimated that one billion children in the world do not have at least one of the basic necessities, such as
food, clean water, shelter, or health care (CARE, 2016). As stated by the international group, Save the
Children:

Child poverty is a challenge which should bind us globally. In almost every country in the world children are
more likely to be living in poverty than adults, and compounding this, their particular life stage makes them
more vulnerable to its devastating effects with potential lifelong consequences for their physical, cognitive and
social development. While children themselves suffer the impacts of their poverty most severely and
immediately, the harmful consequences for societies, economies and future generations can be felt nationally,
regionally and even globally.

(2014, p. 1).

People living in poverty around the globe are more vulnerable to disasters for a multitude of reasons, including
the following: they are less likely to be able to prepare for disasters, live in more hazardous places, often do not
receive or understand warnings, have a harder time evacuating due to a lack of resources, live in unstable or
unsafe housing, have fewer political rights and voice, and have fewer savings for recovery. Children’s
vulnerability is usually tied to the vulnerability of their families, often specifically their mothers. Women have
been found to be particularly vulnerable to disasters due to a lack of economic and political resources,
discrimination and oppression, and the demands of caregiving responsibilities. As we move forward in our
analysis of children, youth, and disaster, we need to keep in mind the ways in which age intersects with
multiple factors.

Social location—such as social class, race, neighborhood, resources, and networks—prior to a disaster often
determines, at least in part, many of the children’s post-disaster outcomes. A child’s experience in a disaster
could also be affected by language, type of housing, immigration status, gender, legal status, poverty, and
disability issues. Girls, for example, are at risk for sexual violence and exploitation in some disaster aftermath
situations. Thus, it is crucial to consider the child’s environment before and after the disaster; to realize that
some children experience cumulative vulnerability, or an accumulation of risk factors; and that disasters may
occur on top of other crises, such as drought, epidemics, or a family crisis such as divorce or death. It is also
important to consider the experiences of children and youth using a human rights perspective.
Finally, one of the significant developments in the work on children, youth, and disaster has been the attention
and recognition of their skills, talents, contributions, unique perspectives, problem-solving aptitudes, teaching
abilities, creativity, and many other capacities. Anderson (2005) stated that children are not just passive victims
or dependent observers, and that the actions that they take beg for documentation, which the field has begun.
It has become clear that at the same time that children and youth are vulnerable, they also demonstrate
important and often unnoticed capabilities and strengths, as they assist themselves and others before and after
a disaster strikes.

As Anderson (2005) stated, recognizing children’s vulnerabilities and capabilities should be a research and
policy priority. As disaster events increase globally, we need to consider how to reduce the suffering of children
and youth, and assist them in disaster aftermaths, with the understanding that they are able to attain and
maintain stability in their lives with social support and the mobilization of resources. The past decade has seen
a steady stream of research, with a wide variety of research methods, often placing children and youth at the
center of the research and paying closer attention to their experiences. This is a positive and welcome
development but much more research is still needed. It is critical—especially as the risks to disasters continue
to increase—that we fill our knowledge gaps and understand the vulnerabilities and capabilities of children and
youth in disasters.