Effects of Community Capacity Building on Emergency Preparedness

Abstract

What are the effects of community capacity building on Emergency Preparedness? While Authorities may try to fight and control disasters such acts of terrorism, other catastrophic events, such as floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, and fires that lead to tragic results remains more frequent in people’s lives in a daily basis. The lack of capacity building in a community or ability to anticipate, cope with, resist and recover from the impact of a hazard increases human vulnerability to disasters. Every community needs sustainable capacity building that starts by building people not programs. This research study was carried in the Saint Joseph County Chapter of Red Cross jurisdiction with the city of South Bend, Indiana in U.S.A. The Dependent Variable which is Emergency Preparedness was measured by analyzing the reports and publications done by American Red Cross within the last five years. The Independent Variable which is community capacity building was measured through personal interviews, surveys, and by comparing data given though Red Cross publications. Unfortunately my hypothesis for the study which is -the greater the community capacity building; the greater is the community level of Emergency Preparedness, was not supported for lack of enough evidence on level of preparedness among the subjects interviewed.