A systematic cross-disciplinary review of resilience at the individual, organizational, and community levels: Developing a framework for public health

Community resilience has been defined as the community’s ability to positively adapt in the face of significant adversity. Just as individuals are able to demonstrate resilience in the face of challenges or threats, so can communities. Public health has grown to care about community resilience because positive community climates have been shown to contribute to significant health advantages. Methods: We conducted a systematic, cross-disciplinary literature review using structured search criteria. In phase two, we recruited residents and community leaders from two historically disadvantaged West Philadelphia neighborhoods to ground truth the theories, frameworks, and measures identified in the review. Results: The literature review revealed a growing number of community resilience articles in the past decade, with a significant number of relevant publications in the fields of psychology, public health, sociology, political science, urban planning, and environmental sciences. Results demonstrated a lack of a consensus on the definition and level at which community resilience is operationalized (e.g., individual, family, neighborhood, town/city). Focus group results included discussion that community resilience in the scientific literature is too focused on returning a community to its “status quo” after a single, traumatic, negative event. Instead it should be developed from within a community and defined by continual improvement in the face of chronic stressors. Conclusions: Community resilience is a salient and relevant construct in public health. Efforts to apply it to community health need to understand its historical, theoretical, and empirical background, as well as, most importantly, the residents’ own experience and perceptions of community resilience.