Migration and Mental Health in the Aftermath of Disaster: Evidence from Mt. Merapi, Indonesia

Jonathan A. Muir, Michael R. Cope, Leslie R. Angeningsih, Jorden Jackson and Ralph B. Brown

No 2u6dg, OSF Preprints from Center for Open Science

Abstract: Migration is a standard survival strategy in the context of disasters. While prior studies have examined factors associated with return migration following disasters, an area that remains relatively under explored is whether moving home to one's original community results in improved health and well-being compared to other options such as deciding to move on. In the present study, we seek to address this gap in the literature through examining whether return migration, compared to other migration options, results in superior improvements to mental health. We draw upon data from a pilot study conducted 16 months after a series of volcanic eruptions in Merapi, Indonesia. Using ordinal logistic regression, we find that compared to respondents who were still displaced, respondents who had ``moved home'' were less likely to report poor mental health status (OR = 0.50 [95\% CI = 0.26, 0.95]). Likewise, respondents who had ``moved on'' were less likely to report poor mental health status (OR = 0.38 [95\% CI = 0.13, 1.04]). The results suggest that while moving home was an improvement from being displaced, it may have been better to move on, as this yielded superior associations with self-reported mental health.

Date: 2019-07-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-mig and nep-sea
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:osf:osfxxx:2u6dg

DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/2u6dg

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