Money, health woes haunt Katrina victims: study

By Lisa Lambert

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Financial hardship and health problems still plague survivors of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, with black residents struggling more than whites, the Kaiser Family Foundation said on Thursday.

More than half of the 1,504 people surveyed by the foundation after the disaster said they had money problems because of the hurricane and resulting floods, and 17 percent said they had lost a job or had to take a lower-paying job. Kaiser conducted the study from September to November 2006.

Altogether, 81 percent of those in the house-to-house survey said their economic or physical well-being had deteriorated.

More than a third said they lost access to health care, while 17 percent said their health had declined and 16 percent said they had mental health troubles. Almost a quarter said their marriages had broken up, their relationships had failed, or they were drinking more since the August 2005 hurricane.

The city's long-standing racial friction became a national controversy when Katrina's floods displaced countless black families.

Many considered the federal and state governments' neglect of area levees and lack of evacuation plans a racial issue because blacks tended to live in areas at risk of flooding.

The Kaiser survey found the disparities remain.

"Anywhere we looked in the survey, in the stories people told us and in the data, we found the racial divide was confirmed, underscored," foundation president Drew Altman said in an interview.