Children who lived through Hurricane Katrina are 4.5 times more likely to show serious emotional disturbances than children in the area did before the disaster, new research suggests.

The disturbances reported by parents included emotional issues, hyperactivity, conduct disorders and problems relating to peers.John Jackson watches as his six-year-old son, Reiss, sands sheet rock in a neighbour's home that is being rebuilt after Hurricane Katrina in Arabi, La., in July 2010. More than half of those who were displaced after Katrina are still dealing with housing instability, researchers say. (Cheryl Gerber/AP Images for UPS)

Five years ago this week, Hurricane Katrina and the flooding of New Orleans caused the evacuation of 1.5 million residents of the Gulf Coast.

On Monday, Dr. Irwin Redlener of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health in New York reviewed progress on rebuilding the local economy and infrastructure, as well as the high level of psychological distress and housing instability that remains.

More than half of those who were displaced after Katrina are still dealing with housing instability, the researchers found.

More than one-third of 427 children from displaced families have been diagnosed with a mental health problem, most commonly behavioural and conduct disorders.

Fewer than half of the families seeking mental health counselling for their children were able to access such services.

In the period between June 2009 and June 2010, psychiatric, developmental or learning-related disorders in Louisiana children were diagnosed as often as respiratory illness was, according to a related document funded by the Children's Health Fund. The fund provides mobile clinics to underserved areas of the Gulf Coast.

The findings from both studies were published in Monday's online issue of the American Medical Association's Journal of Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness.