Elderly and Disaster Mental Health: Understanding Older Persons’ Vulnerability and Psychosocial Well-Being Two Years after Tsunami

The paper captures the post disaster lived experiences of elderly in a developing country context with special emphasis on vulnerability and psycho-social well-being. Drawing from social science literature, an older person’s risk of suffering harm post disasters is the conceptualized as the outcome of a set of related risks namely: the risk of being exposed to a threat, the risk of lacking the resources to deal with a threat, and the risk of a threat materializing. The study uses a qualitative multiple case study approach and is based on 175 in-depth case studies of tsunami-affected families. The results highlight the key changes in the social status of elderly and their support seeking experiences 2 yrs post tsunami. The framework of psychosocial well-being emerging from the study identifies macro structural factors that contribute to older person’s vulnerability, the threats, the resources, and the proximate social experiences that impinge on individual lives. The analysis of the lived experiences of the elderly reveal that the interpretation of the outcomes shaped by the support seeking experiences, largely determines the perception of psychosocial well-being among elderly.