Cambodian-Laotian community strengths and resilience study conducted in coastal Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, and Louisiana between March 2018 and July 2019

Refugee and immigrant communities’ histories and cultural differences lend themselves to unique types of vulnerabilities and challenges for achieving community resilience in response to environmental stressors and disasters. This mixed methods, community- based participatory research project engaged Cambodian and Laotian families living along coastal Alabama to determine how individual, family, and community level strengths and vulnerabilities contributed to community health and well-being and how community members utilized social networks and formal community services to respond to stressors. Important outcomes included the development of culturally responsive interventions and strategies for increasing community capacity and resilience when communities are faced with challenges associated with environmental stressors and disasters. Qualitative: Participants were recruited via purposive, snowball sampling of the key community partners working with the researchers. Specifically, there are four cultural advisory board members embedded in the community who worked closely with the researchers throughout participant recruitment and data collection (two Cambodian community members and two Lao community members). In total, 124 interviews were completed with 183 participants between March 2018 and July 2019. Of participants, 55 were men and 128 were women. 68 Lao and 113 Cambodian participants were interviewed, as well as 2 participants of other ethnicities. Participants 15 years and older were invited to participate. For individuals ages 15-18, both they and their parent or guardian completed the informed consent. Of participants, 20 were aged 25 or younger, 35 participants were ages 25-39, 82 participants were ages 40-60, and 46 participants were 61 or older. Additionally, of participants, 20 immigrated to the US less than 5 years prior to the time of the interview, 12 participants immigrated within 5-10 years, 35 immigrated within 10-20 years, 37 immigrated 20-30 years prior, 55 participants immigrated over 30 years prior to the interview, and 24 participants’ time since immigration was unknown. Participants received a $25 gift card as an incentive for participating in an interview (either ethnographic or photovoice).

Participants came to community meetings and were offered a $10-retail gift card for participation in the survey data collection. Data were also collected in homes, businesses and recreational locations. Most of the data were collected in the Mobile County (73 percent, n=326) and the remaining responses came from a combination of Mississippi (n=58), Florida (n=34) and Louisiana (n=27) in October of 2017 through March of 2018. Responses were recruited through purposive snowball sampling of the key community partners working with the researchers. Specifically, there are four cultural advisory board members embedded in the community working closely with the researchers for data collection (two Cambodian community members and two Lao community members). Nearly all responses were collected face to face on iPad devices. The survey was available in English, Khmer and Lao. Institutional review board requirement and human subject approval were obtained by the (University of Georgia) and subjects indicated their consent to participate in the project. Including demographic information, the survey contained 67 questions and took approximately 15 min to complete.

This dataset supports the publications: DeYoung, S. E., Lewis, D. C., Seponski, D. M., Augustine, D., & Phal, M. 2019. Disaster preparedness among Cambodian- and Laotian- Americans. Disaster Prevention and Management.

Kelley, A., Seponski, D., & Lewis, D. (2022). ‘Swallow medicine, eat rice, pray about health’: Health, health care and health-seeking experiences of South-East Asian older refugees. Ageing and Society, 1-18. doi:10.1017/S0144686X22000290