The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) reports that while only 11% of people exposed to natural hazards live in poor countries, it is those nations that suffer 53% of total deaths. Many of the people living in poverty are caught in a vicious cycle of poverty regardless of where they live – low and middle income countries (LMIC)/ high income countries (HIC). Recurrent disaster events escalate vulnerability and poverty levels. Though the link to poverty worsening the effect of natural disasters and vice versa are well established, not much has been explored in the way of understanding how children who live in poverty usually cope with these recurrent adversities. Understanding both adaptive and maladaptive coping strategies will assist with lessons that can be translated into intervention efforts.  The project will explore coping of children and families living in poverty during disasters in both Australia and India in order to exchange and build on the existing knowledge base. The project eventually aims to develop an intervention that builds their resilience in coping with adversities like disasters.

This project is beign undertaken by Revathi N. Krishna a PhD student at Monash University.   Revathi is interested in studying how children and families who live in poverty cope with disasters. She has a Master’s degree in Clinical Psychology from the US. Before starting her PhD studies, she was leading the clinical team for a large randomized control study testing a peer delivered CBT based psychosocial intervention to treat perinatal depression in India. She is passionate about doing research related to mental health and is currently riding the waves of her PhD studies.