{"id":798973,"date":"2026-08-02T08:35:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-02T08:35:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/798973\/"},"modified":"2026-08-02T08:35:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-02T08:35:08","slug":"study-finds-lahaina-survivors-mental-health-worsening","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/798973\/","title":{"rendered":"Study finds Lahaina survivors\u2019 mental health worsening"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) &#8211; A new study finds that the mental health of Lahaina survivors is worsening, especially for children.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">University of Hawaii researchers with the Maui Wildfire Exposure Study (MauiWES) said Maui is recovering, but insecurity, housing instability, health concerns and weakening social support continue to place many families at risk.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">MauiWES published the report, <a href=\"https:\/\/uhero.hawaii.edu\/the-road-to-recovery-strengthening-health-stability-and-resiliency-three-years-after-the-maui-wildfires\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/uhero.hawaii.edu\/the-road-to-recovery-strengthening-health-stability-and-resiliency-three-years-after-the-maui-wildfires\/\">\u201cThe Road to Recovery: Strengthening Health, Stability, and Resiliency Three Years After the Maui Wildfires,\u201d<\/a> outlining its findings on Monday, July 27.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Although those in the study continue to find employment and get out of temporary housing, officials worry that their mental health is not following the same trajectory.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cIn regard to mental health, the honesty is, it\u2019s not great,\u201d Knightsbridge said. He is a therapist and psychology researcher. \u201cI\u2019ve had kids as young as six years old tell me this, that they don\u2019t want to live anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The University of Hawaii group has taken steps beyond aggressive outreach to help survivors, conducting more than 4,000 appointments and screenings for more than 2,500 participants, providing residents with mental health assessments, blood pressure checks, lung function testing, blood tests, social needs screening, health information and referrals.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cThere\u2019s so much resiliency within these people there. But that resiliency doesn\u2019t mean that they\u2019re not hurting. It just means that they\u2019re surviving despite carrying around that hurt,\u201d Knightsbridge said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The group is also launching a new program to connect patients to the proper care they need in rural areas like Lahaina.<\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2026 Hawaii News Now. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) &#8211; A new study finds that the mental health of Lahaina survivors is worsening, especially for&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":798974,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[97,259,260],"class_list":["post-798973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mental-health","tag-health","tag-mental-health","tag-mentalhealth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798973","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=798973"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798973\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/798974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=798973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=798973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=798973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}