Disaster's disparate impacts: Analysing perceived stress and personal resilience across gender and race.

The purpose of this research was to identify differences in perceived stress and personal resilience across race, gender, and different types of stressors (i.e., rent/mortgage stress) for a sample of U.S. residents experiencing the COVID-19 pandemic. This study used a cross-sectional, convenience sampling design for primary survey data collected over 10 weeks starting in April 2020 (n = 374). Independent t-tests and binary logistic regression were performed to determine statistically significant differences between gender and race for perceived stress and personal resilience and to identify key contributing factors. Results indicate women exhibited higher levels of stress compared to men, with non-IPV reporting women evidencing higher levels of resilience than IPV reporting women. Racial minority women were more likely to experience nutritional stress due to the disaster, while white women were more likely to worry about rent or mortgage stress resulting from the disaster. These findings provide insight into disparate impacts across vulnerable populations regarding perceived stress and resilience at the start of a crisis with implications for improving pre- and post- disaster interventions.