Six months following Hurricane Katrina, PiR2 researchers along with the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University’s Earth Institute and the Children’s Health Fund’s Operation Assist conducted a random household survey of the health and well-being of 555 Louisiana households that had been displaced or severely impacted by the disaster. This study focused on identifying health and social service needs among this displaced and heavily-impacted population shortly thereafter the study was replicated in 524 households along Mississippi’s Gulf Coast.

The G-CAFH cohort was recruited in Louisiana and Mississippi in the first year after Katrina, 1,079 households, including 427 households(40%) with children. The cohort was conducted the baseline and three rounds of follow-up, at 2 years post-Katrina, at 3 years post-Katrina, and at 4+ years after Katrina

In the last round of data collected, between Nov 2009 – Mar 2010, the research team interviewed (or retained) 88% of all eligible study participants.  This is a very high retention rate given the transiency of the population, and the uncertainty of their lives.

The data represent ~80,000 people who had been displaced or greatly impacted by Katrina in the two states, of whom approximately 20 – 25,000 are children under the age of 18, and is one of the largest ongoing studies of recovery in the region. The research team assumed that for children under 18, approximately ¾ are school-aged (5-17 years old) and ¼ are 0-4 years old.

Beginning in January 2016, the G-CAFH research team will be back in the field to follow up with study participants for a fifth round of data collection.