<p>Exposure to a large-scale disaster, such as a tsunami, impacts population health over a decade later. A new study by an inter-disciplinary team of researchers in the United States and Indonesia has found that women who lived along the coast of Aceh, Indonesia when it was hit by waves from the 2004 tsunami have lower cortisol levels 14 years later than women who lived in other, nearby coastal communities that were not directly affected.</p>

<p>Cortisol is a stress hormone produced by the adrenal glands. Cortisol levels rise in response to stress as part of the fight or flight response, but consistently elevated stress can result in dysregulation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. The study links the stresses from exposure to the tsunami to “burnout” of the HPA-axis manifest in low cortisol levels over the long-term.</p>