The April 20 BP well blowout in the Gulf of Mexico has not yet affected University students enough to make them seek counseling from the Student Health Center’s Mental Health Service, but one national poll found Gulf Coast residents are emotionally worse off after the BP accident.
 
“These findings provide supporting evidence of the need for enhanced psychological assistance for residents of Gulf Coast-facing counties, and for the targeting of these efforts to residents living along the coastline itself rather than all residents living in the affected states,” a Gallup poll released Sept. 28 indicated.
 
Drayton Vincent, Mental Health Service director at the University, said none of his clients have yet “identified the oil spill or economic issues as a problem.”
 
Vincent said students are likely still affected by the oil disaster but may not come to Mental Health Service until long-term effects are seen and other avenues for relief — like talking with family and friends — are exhausted.
 
“When we went through
[Hurricane] Katrina, we didn’t see Katrina-related stuff for a couple of semesters,” Vincent said. “When the reality of how Katrina affected peoples’ lives in the long term set in, then we saw some students come in around those issues. Same thing is true with this situation.”
 
The Gallup poll used the Gallup-Healthways Emotional Health Index during the 15 weeks after the BP explosion to measure the overall decline in emotional health among Gulf Coast residents. It measured respondents before the accident, from Jan. 2 to April 20, and after the blowout, from April 21 to Aug. 6.
 
“Residents of Gulf Coast-facing counties experienced a decline in their overall emotional health … [while] those living in inland counties in the same Gulf of Mexico states showed no such drops in emotional health in the oil spill’s aftermath,” the poll says.
 
Gallup questioned residents about daily worries, stress, sadness and clinical depression. Gallup found these areas reporting 25 percent more clinical diagnoses of depression after the BP accident, and it found these residents had declining views of their communities after the oil spill.
 
“The magnitude of these worsening daily emotional experiences, however, may be more modest than some might expect, given the severity of the oil spill itself and the extensive damage to local communities,” Gallup indicated in its
findings.
 
Gallup completed nearly 2,600 interviews in Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Texas and Louisiana, which included the parishes of Orleans, St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Jefferson, St. Charles, Lafourche, Terrebonne, St. Mary, Iberia, Vermilion, Cameron and St. Tammany.
 
Mental Health Service aids students “in their personal growth and development and by enhancing their mental and emotional well-being,” according to the department’s website.
 
The Mental Health Service is accredited by the International Association of Counseling Services, Inc., and it is available to full-time students who paid the Student Health Center fee.
 
 
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Contact Nicholas Persac at
[email protected]