Promoting Youth-Centric Disaster Mental Health Preparedness (DMHP) in Higher Education: A Cross-National Exploratory Study of Out-of-Province/State and International College Students (17-24 Years of Age) in Halifax, NS, Canada and Boston, MA, U.S.A.

Disaster mental health preparedness (DMHP) is an effective mitigation strategy to build individual and collective capacity to respond to, adapt to, and recover from detrimental psychological, emotional, and social influences associated with extreme events. This protection approach has largely been ignored in disaster and emergency planning and operation in the context of higher education, where a majority of students have been disproportionately affected by climate change and climate-induced disasters. Focusing on out-of-province/state and international college students (17-24 years of age) in Halifax, Canada, and Boston, the U.S., this exploratory project will use a mixed-method survey to generate preliminary data for understanding students’ DMHP awareness and identifying their DMHP specific challenges and unique needs. These college student-driven data will be discussed with diverse on-campus stakeholders in two workshops hosted in Halifax and Boston, respectively. The workshop discussion will generate recommendations to advocate for youth-centric DMHP in organizational disaster and emergency management. The recommendations will inform service providers and decision-makers to develop related on-/off-campus resources, services, and plans to support students’ mental health pre-, peri-, and post-disaster. Moving forward, the team will pursue other external grants to develop a full cross-national partnership by inviting research, practice, and decision-making collaborators to promote DMHP and empower youth leadership in achieving climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction.