Community Violence Exposure, Private Religious Practices and Substance Use Among Guatemalan Humanitarian Aid Workers PDF Download

Author: Autumn M. Gallegos
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Nonprofit organizations
Languages : en
Pages : 174

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Book Description
Humanitarian aid workers in Guatemala have served communities of people faced with poverty, displacement. and community violence (CV). Aid workers serving in countries with high rates of poverty and crime are exposed to high numbers of traumatic events, often on a daily basis. Exposure to CV has both acute and chronic effects on emotional, physical, and psychological well-being. Surveys were conducted among GuatemaIan national aid workers (N = 135) from four aid organizations to examine CV exposure, health risk behaviors like substance abuse, and positive health behaviors like private religious practices. We hypothosized that there would be a significant positive correlation between CV exposure and substance use. It was also hypothesized that there would be a significant inverse correlation between private religious practices and substance use. Private religious practices were hypothesized to account for significant variance explained in substaiicc use above and beyond gendcr and CV exposure. The results from the study indicated that exposure to CV was positively correlated with substance use among the aid workers. Private religious practices were inversely correlated with substance use when gender and CV exposure were controIled. Finally, private religious practices accounted for the most variance in substance use above and beyond CV exposure and gender. The findings have implications for aid worker care and the role of private religious practice as a protective factor against health risk behaviors.