Published works

In 2011 the clinicians at the Zero-to-Four Child and Youth Mental Health Service identified an increasing number of children entering the service after experiencing severe weather events. The United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction declared children to be the group most affected by disasters (B. Pfefferbaum, Pfefferbaum, & Van Horn, 2018). During that same year, there were 332 major weather events around the world. In this period alone, 244.7 million people were impacted by a natural disaster at a cost of USD$366.1 billion (Guha-Sapir, Vos, Below, & Ponserre, 2012). For five nations, this was their most expensive year for natural disaster. Australia experienced significant flooding and a cyclone, Brazil had a flash flood followed by a mudslide, New Zealand had two significant earthquakes within 6 months, Japan had a major earthquake and tsunami, the US experienced at least 17 separate weather events, South Africa had significant flooding, severe hailstorms were recorded in China, while Philippines experienced 33 separate weather events, and Europe experienced 18 separate events (Guha-Sapir et al., 2012).