Post-disaster financial and social toll on mothers linked to poorer mental health in their children

Children’s mental health may be indirectly harmed by their mothers’ experience of a major disaster, through the financial and social losses the disaster causes, according to a new study published June 17, 2026 in the open access journal PLOS One by Ariane Lisann Rung of the University of Nebraska Medical Center, US, and colleagues.

Disasters such as oil spills impact not only the environment and the individuals directly involved, but wider communities as well. In 2010, the British Petroleum Deepwater Horizon oil platform exploded, causing the largest marine oil spill in history along the Gulf of Mexico. Studies in Louisiana after the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill (DHOS) found that among women, more exposure to the oil spill was associated with higher levels of depression, mental distress, and domestic conflict. 

In the new study, researchers drew on data from the Women and Their Children's Health (WaTCH) Study, a longitudinal study in seven southern Louisiana parishes. At Wave 1 (2012–2014), 445 mothers reported on their physical and economic exposure to the oil spill. At Wave 2 (2014–2016), both maternal resource loss and children’s mental health were assessed in the 445 mother-child pairs.

Maternal oil spill exposure was not directly associated with children’s mental health outcomes. However, maternal exposure was strongly associated with greater resource loss (est=0.45, p<.0001), which in turn was associated with worse children’s mental health scores (est=0.27, p<.0001). Collectively, maternal oil spill exposure was compatible with an indirect negative effect on children’s mental health mediated by resource loss (est=0.12, p<0.005).

The findings align with the Conservation of Resources framework, which holds that disasters harm wellbeing primarily by depleting the financial, social, and personal resources people rely on to cope, and that when these losses compound, their effects can extend to the whole family.

The study is limited by the timespan of the data, collected two to six years after the spill: it is unclear whether findings would generalize to the immediate aftermath of a disaster, or to other contexts. In addition, the effect of maternal oil spill exposure on children’s mental health was indirect and modest in magnitude, and because resource loss and children's mental health were assessed at the same wave, strict causal conclusions cannot be drawn. The absence of pre-spill baseline mental health data limits the ability to rule out pre-existing differences.

Nonetheless, the researchers conclude that major disasters such as oil spills may indirectly affect children’s mental health mediated through a pathway of financial and social resource loss. Interventions mitigating resource loss may be vital for protecting children’s mental well-being in the aftermath of disasters, they say.

The authors add: “These findings illuminate potential pathways through which oil spills may impact mothers and their children, highlighting in particular the role of financial and social resource loss caused by exposure to an oil spill. Research in this area has often focused on impacts of oil spills on individuals who have had more direct contact with the oil, but our results demonstrate a wider impact on the community. Children especially have been understudied, compared to adults, yet they may be doubly impacted, both through the spill itself and through the adaptive capacity of their parents. This study sheds light on how maternal exposure to oil spills can lead to financial and social resource loss among mothers, which may then lead to worse child mental health.”

In your coverage, please use this URL to provide access to the freely available article in PLOS One: https://plos.io/4o1RiB5

Citation: Rung AL, Sternberger KM, Oral E, Peters ES (2026) Maternal exposure to oil spill and children’s mental health: The mediating role of resource loss. PLoS One 21(6): e0335995. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0335995

Author countries: USA

Funding: 1. ESP, 1U01ES021497, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, https://www.niehs.nih.gov/. 2. ESP, R01AG069609, National Institute on Aging, https://www.nia.nih.gov/. The funders had no role in the design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.