Measuring community resilience: A critical analysis of a policy-oriented indicator tool

Abstract

There has been ample interest in community resilience as a buffer against the negative impacts of disasters, as evident from the proliferation of community resilience indicator assessment tools in recent years. However, relying on this body of research for policy is challenging, not the least due to the abundance of differing approaches and lack of empirical validation of proposed indicators. As an illustrative case of the challenges of using community resilience assessment indicators for policy, this study examines how well an indicator tool developed by FEMA to guide disaster resilience-building initiatives might help predict post-disaster health outcomes of counties. I analyze the relationship between counties' measured disaster-focused community resilience as of 2005, the disaster-inflicted economic damage they experienced in 2005, and their population's subsequent general and mental health outcomes, as estimated from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System surveys (2006–2012). Counties categorized as ‘high resilience’ in 2005 had better subsequent health outcomes than those with lower resilience. However, counties with high resilience scores and which experienced a major disaster in 2005 did not fare better subsequently compared to counties with lower resilience scores and which also experienced a major disaster. These findings suggest that, despite its stated intent to assess which communities might be more or less resilient to disasters, FEMA's formulation of community resilience does not adequately measure resilience to disasters. More work is necessary to build consensus in the field; validate proposed tools; and to consider broader, structural reasons driving community resilience in the first place.