Community Resilience Governance on Public Health Crisis in China

Chao Wang, Xuan Dong, Yan Zhang and Yiwen Luo
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Chao Wang: School of Public Policy & Management (School of Emergency Management), China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou 221116, China
Xuan Dong: School of Public Policy & Management (School of Emergency Management), China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou 221116, China
Yan Zhang: School of Public Policy & Management (School of Emergency Management), China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou 221116, China
Yiwen Luo: School of Public Policy & Management (School of Emergency Management), China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou 221116, China

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 4, 1-19

Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic has immensely affected economic and social order in not only China but the entire world, seriously threatening peoples’ lives and property. In China’s fight against COVID-19, the community is at the front line of joint prevention and control of the disease, yet it faces the problem of insufficient resilience. We explored the manifestations and formation mechanism of the problem of insufficient resilience in community public health crisis governance, based on the complex adaptive system theory, which emphasizes interaction among subjects and between subjects and the environment to improve the adaptability to the environment. Questionnaires and in-depth interviews were conducted in 28 counties (districts) of 14 cities of 7 provinces in China; 2345 questionnaires and 71 interview data were collected, and we conducted descriptive statistical analysis on questionnaire data. It is found that some communities faced insufficient resilience problems such as “simply isolating households and communities”, “blindly setting limits”, “layer-by-layer law”, and “rejecting and repelling all individuals from or even related to Hubei”. These problems are due to the fact that the community have a non-interactive relationship, which is a one-dimensional linear governance model to some extent. The legal content of the building of a “comprehensive disaster-reduction demonstration community” implemented by the Chinese government is compelled to stay at the level of system design to some extent, with its existence playing an ornamental role but lacking a substantial one. In this regard, this study suggests that a resilient governance model of community pluralistic cooperation be established based on the theoretical framework of complex adaptive system. This model is designed to increase the resilience of community public health crisis governance. The authoritative role of central and local policies is expected to be truly developed and played in dealing with the grassroots community public health crisis.

Keywords: COVID-19; community resilience governance; public health crisis; ritual system (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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