How Do Communities Use a Participatory Public Health Approach to Build Resilience? The Los Angeles County Community Disaster Resilience Project

Elizabeth Bromley, David P. Eisenman, Aizita Magana, Malcolm Williams, Biblia Kim, Michael McCreary, Anita Chandra and Kenneth B. Wells
Additional contact information
Elizabeth Bromley: Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, David Geffen School of Medicine at University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA
David P. Eisenman: Division of General Internal Medicine, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA; Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA
Aizita Magana: Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, 313 N Figueroa St, Los Angeles, CA 90012, USA
Malcolm Williams: RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, CA 90401, USA
Biblia Kim: School of Public Health, Loma Linda University, Loma Linda, CA 92350, USA
Michael McCreary: Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, David Geffen School of Medicine at University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA
Anita Chandra: RAND Corporation, Arlington, VA 22202, USA
Kenneth B. Wells: Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, David Geffen School of Medicine at University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA

IJERPH, 2017, vol. 14, issue 10, 1-14

Abstract: Community resilience is a key concept in the National Health Security Strategy that emphasizes development of multi-sector partnerships and equity through community engagement. Here, we describe the advancement of CR principles through community participatory methods in the Los Angeles County Community Disaster Resilience (LACCDR) initiative. LACCDR, an initiative led by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health with academic partners, randomized 16 community coalitions to implement either an Enhanced Standard Preparedness or Community Resilience approach over 24 months. Facilitated by a public health nurse or community educator, coalitions comprised government agencies, community-focused organizations and community members. We used thematic analysis of data from focus groups ( n = 5) and interviews ( n = 6 coalition members; n = 16 facilitators) to compare coalitions’ strategies for operationalizing community resilience levers of change (engagement, partnership, self-sufficiency, education). We find that strategies that included bidirectional learning helped coalitions understand and adopt resilience principles. Strategies that operationalized community resilience levers in mutually reinforcing ways (e.g., disseminating information while strengthening partnerships) also secured commitment to resilience principles. We review additional challenges and successes in achieving cross-sector collaboration and engaging at-risk groups in the resilience versus preparedness coalitions. The LACCDR example can inform strategies for uptake and implementation of community resilience and uptake of the resilience concept and methods.

Keywords: community participatory methods; community resilience; disaster preparedness; community coalitions; public health nursing; disaster risk reduction (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/14/10/1267/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/14/10/1267/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:14:y:2017:i:10:p:1267-:d:115947

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().