Unique Features of the Study

The Hurricane Harvey Flood Study was built upon the original Project Ice Storm and our two flood studies, The Iowa Flood Study and the Queensland Flood Study (QF2011). Some of the improvements included:

1. A fast start, which was achieved by recruiting via social media, local radio, television, and newspaper ads, and flyers in various perinatal clinics;
2. On-line data collection that allowed for rapid participant recruitment;
3. A larger number of participants (approximately 1000 pregnant women);
4. Recruitment of a preconception group (women who became pregnant only after the disaster);
5. A randomly assigned n on-line expressive writing intervention (control group), neutral topic writing; traumatic topic writing).