Rita Xiaochen Hu

Social disability is a process or event that significantly disrupts, paralyzes, or prevents the formation and/or sustaining of interpersonal social relations required for meeting human needs. When prolonged, the ‘disabling’ of essential human interrelationships can have a destructive impact. This is especially true in communities where people are highly interdependent and where individuals living with disabilities rely upon social relationships to prevent isolation and decline in overall wellbeing. Meanwhile, disaster response systems have developed to first rescue or protect individuals’ ‘bare life’ and immediate, bodily needs. We argue that these systems, intended to mitigate disaster, can exacerbate social disability as a kind of collateral damage. We explore this problem as it unfolded amidst the COVID-19 pandemic in two research sites: one located in rural, northern Scotland and another located in rural, Midwestern United States. The Scottish research focuses on experiences, causes and risks of social disability for adults living with disabilities within a small rural community, while the U.S. research focuses on emergence of and resistance to social disability among residents of a continuing care retirement community for 55+ aged adults. We conclude with implications and recommendations for disaster intervention and future research.

Objectives To examine the association between prepandemic social integration and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and test whether the association is mediated by social support received and social events missed during the pandemic. We also explored age, race, gender, and socioeconomic differences in the association. Methods We adopted a prospective design. Path analysis was conducted using data from the COVID-19 supplement (2020) and the 2019 wave of the National Health and Aging Trends Study (NHATS). The sample represents Medicare beneficiaries aged 70 years and older (N = 2,694). Social integration was measured using a six-item index. A standardized scale assessed PTSD symptoms. Both social support received and social events missed were single-item measures. The analysis controlled for sociodemographic characteristics, prepandemic physical and mental health, and coronavirus exposure during the pandemic. Results Prepandemic social integration was positively associated with PTSD symptoms during the pandemic. The association was primarily mediated by social events missed—high levels of prepandemic social integration were associated with missing more social events during the pandemic resulting in more PTSD symptoms. Social support received was also a mediator—social integration was positively associated with social support received during the pandemic, with more received support associated with greater PTSD symptoms. Prepandemic social integration had no significant direct effect on PTSD symptoms. The direct, indirect, and total effects of social integration on PTSD symptoms did not significantly differ by age, race, gender, education, or poverty status. Discussion Social integration may carry mental health risks in times of infectious disease outbreaks.