Building a Culture of Community Disaster Resilience through Engagement and Collaboration

Background: Worldwide, disasters are occurring with increased frequency and severity. LA County is particularly vulnerable due to the vast geographic reach and dense and diverse populations, delaying response and recovery times after a disaster. As a result, emergency preparedness has become a major focus area of public health planning efforts in LA County.

Community Disaster Resilience is the ability of communities to establish social connections and networks with government agencies and local organizations that allow them to effectively prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters. Building community resilience is an ongoing process through which communities assess resources and strengths along with vulnerabilities and weaknesses and plan accordingly.

Methods: The Los Angeles County Community Disaster Resilience (LACCDR) Project is a three-year federally funded pilot project, which aims to engage community-based organizations in providing leadership and partnership in the face of public health emergencies using a community-based participatory methodology. Public health staff recruited local community-based coalitions to participate in one of two emergency preparedness program models. Sixteen communities were selected based on established criteria and randomly assigned to Preparedness or Resilience Program Models.  Participating communities implemented community-driven emergency preparedness activities and strategies based on the assigned program model and the identified needs of their community. 

Outcomes: Currently in the second year, preliminary data suggest that coalitions with diverse sector representation elicit strong community involvement across both program models.

Conclusions: Coalition sector representation may serve as a measure of a community’s capability to mobilize community members to actively engage in preparedness planning and other community-based initiatives.