Predicting Community Resilience and Recovery After a Disaster

Climate Report

After 9/11, I was asked by the Baltimore City Health Commissioner to help prepare the city for a radiation terrorism event, because my entire career up until that point had been in radiation-based medical imaging. I didn’t know anything about public health preparedness at the time, but I found it very fulfilling to work with the city health department and other first responders, especially fire and police. Public health preparedness science and research is more than multi-disciplinary, it’s trans-disciplinary, which is what makes it fun.

Master the VocabularyConnecting behavioral and social science

The Johns Hopkins Center for Public Health Preparedness has a particular interest in the mental and behavioral health challenges that people, organizations, and jurisdictions face during and after disasters. If you look at the disaster literature you will see references to dysfunction, which can be caused by either physical or psychological trauma. After a disaster, the number of people with psychological trauma exceeds the number of people with physical injury by as much as 40 to 1, but there is much more research and emergency response focus on the physical effects of a disaster rather than the psychosocial effects. Our interest and expertise in the behavioral science of disasters was the main reason that CDC’s Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response asked us to work on an innovative model and index to measure resilience in the United States.

Understanding resilience in disasters

You can think about resilience on two levels – on the individual level and at the community level. For individuals, we are interested in three things: psychological resistance before a disaster, resilience during a disaster, and recovery after the disaster. Resilience at this level reflects the ability of someone to spring back after experiencing trauma from a disaster. We think about community resilience like an ecosystem. In any ecosystem there is a minimum requirement for the system to successfully function and survive. The same is true for a community. So when we think about community resilience, we must not only think about the ability of a community to return to its pre-event level of functioning, but also assess how that community is working at its lowest point after a disaster and determine if that is a level where it can still function successfully – or even at all.

Modeling resilience

Example of COPEWELL model output showing overall pre-disaster resilience for all US counties.
Example of COPEWELL model output showing overall pre-disaster resilience for all US counties.

We approached our colleagues at the University of Delaware Disaster Research Center, who are experts in the sociological factors in disasters that lead to emergent collective behavior. This phenomenon refers to a group of every-day people coming together to aid the formal emergency response. The COPEWELL (“Composite of Post-Event Well-Being”) project was born out of this collaboration between experts in the psychological and sociological impacts of disasters on individuals and communities, along with experts in engineering, modeling, public health and healthcare, and other domains.

We realized that a static model with a single score for resilience would not capture the way a system changes over time and the many interrelated parts that make up a community. We came up with a system dynamics model, which allowed us to input different factors that characterize a community, including housing, communication, healthcare, and transportation. We then throw a disaster at the model and see how the community responds. Depending on the type of natural disaster or public health emergency, how a community functions plays out differently over time. For example, a pandemic usually builds slowly and reaches a peak before gradually decreasing, while a severe weather event spikes quickly and exponentially decreases. Different communities have different inherent characteristics that determine how well they can resist the negative effects of an event and how quickly they can recover. What is unique about COPEWELL is that it is a whole community model, not just a public health model, and looks at how the community functions over time, which allows you to derive a measure of resilience.

Putting the data to work

The COPEWELL model has been used to predict resilience after a disaster in all 3,100+ counties in the United States. We’ve also explored using the model at a more granular level, including at the neighborhood level in New York City. Experts are working on a web-based platform for the model that stakeholders such as government leaders and public health officials can use in their communities.

In addition to supporting the project, CDC has provided technical assistance and expertise to translate and apply the model in practice. Once more fully validated, the results from the model can be used to help identify and evaluate interventions to improve community resilience and accelerate recovery after a disaster.

Learn more

A Safe Community Starts With You

South Los Angeles Youth Active in CERT Training
Youth from the South Los Angeles area engage in a Community Emergency Response Team exercise. In partnership with the DHS Center for Faith-based & Neighborhood Partnerships, the Los Angeles Fire Department and Los Angeles County Public Health division have been able to reach a diverse group of youth to introduce disaster preparedness to build positive relationships with local first responders and increase public safety.

 

The minutes, hours, and days immediately following a disaster are the most critical for saving lives. In times of crisis, local communities are first to respond. It’s up to each of us to make sure our communities are resilient and can bounce back from disaster. We do this by being prepared to help ourselves and those around us.

“[Reducing the risks of disasters] begins at home – in our schools, places of work and worship, and throughout our local communities,” says a United Nations report. “It is here where we will either save lives – or lose them – depending on the steps we take today to reduce our vulnerability to tomorrow’s hazards.”

Volunteers Help With Cleanup
re·sil·ient \ri-ˈzil-yənt\: able to become strong, healthy, or successful again after something bad happens

But what makes a community more resilient? It starts with you.

Save yourself, save others                                 

In an emergency, we often look to trained responders in our community to come to the rescue. But we can’t always look to others to save us in times of need. Earthquakes and floods can wipe out roads, cutting off neighborhoods from outside help. Widespread devastation may overwhelm services, and trained responders can’t be everywhere at once. Most of all, help from outside will take time to arrive, and time is precious following a disaster.

Experts are not the only people who can – or should — take action. Each of us has the power to save lives. And by being ready to help yourself or others, you become part of the solution instead of the problem. All it takes is knowledge, planning, and practice to create a more resilient community.

Make a plan for yourself and your family

Resilient communities are prepared. Plan for your own home. Do you have an emergency kit? Does everyone know where to meet if you get separated? Have you practiced what to do, especially if you have children? Have you accounted for your pets and for anyone who may have special needs?

Do you know where your nearest hospital is and how long it takes to get there? What about the nearest emergency shelter – is it in a school gymnasium, stadium, or community center? What are the evacuation routes for your community?

Start by making sure you have the answers to these questions.

Learn about your community

Community Based Disaster Risk Reduction Study, International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, Geneva, 2012

Resilient communities are connected. Get to know the people around you. Start by meeting your neighbors. Attend a religious service. Go to a PTA meeting. Volunteer. Reach out.

Find out what organizations are already in place in your area, and how to connect with them. Get in the habit of serving your community. Help your local food bank or other charity – ask how you can contribute to the effort, so that help is nearby when you need it most. Find out what the specific needs are around you; every community is different.

Get it together

Together, you can make a plan and set goals. Remember to track your progress as you work toward your goals, and celebrate your successes.

Once you have plans, practice putting them into action. Have a fire or tornado drill at your school or office. Practice getting to your designated meeting place, and make sure everyone knows how to text message, which can be a more reliable way to communicate in an emergency.

Stay aware

Resilient communities are knowledgeable. Know your resources, and stay aware of what’s happening around you. In addition to watching or listening to local news and talking with neighbors, resources like CDC emergency and FEMA’s mobile app can help you stay informed when disaster strikes and/or you’re away from home. Many local governments use emergency notification systems to notify residents of severe weather, evacuations, etc. Use them – both to get and to give information.

By spreading knowledge before, during, and after emergencies, you can make sure that “everyone, from a local school child to a village grandmother to the municipal mayor, knows how to protect him or herself,” says the UN report.

Remember, all disasters – and all responses – are local. Even if an emergency is widespread, it is local communities who suffer the impact of the disaster and must bear the responsibility for the initial emergency response. How a community reacts, survives, and rebuilds following a disaster will depend largely on the resources it has put in place beforehand.

When every minute counts, the more of us are prepared, the safer we all are.

Learn how you can get involved in your community:

 October 13 is the International Day for Disaster Reduction, which “celebrates how people and communities around the world are reducing their exposure to disasters and raising awareness about the importance of reining in the risks they face.” For more information about how we can all work to lessen the impact of disasters, visit the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction.