Resilience Profile Research Articles

Tackling the “New Normal”: A Resilience Assessment Method Applied to Real-World Urban Water Systems

The water sector is, currently and for the foreseeable future, challenged by rising levels of uncertainty in demand and availability of water, in a context of aging infrastructure and limited investment. In order to support strategic planning, water companies need a way to assess how their system behaves when faced with a range of changing conditions (climatic trends, asset deterioration, behavioral patterns, etc.) as well as accidents/incidents and/or extreme events (wildcards). In this study, a resilience assessment methodology was demonstrated, with ‘stress tests’ alternative water system configurations (including systems designed with decentralized or distributed philosophies) under a range of scenarios and extreme events. A ‘resilience profile graph’ was developed to quantify the performance of each configuration. The methodology was applied to the real-world urban water system of Oasen, which supplies the eastern part of the Province of South Holland, where the current system configuration and two potential future configurations were tested (one decentralized and one distributed). We show how the concept of resilience, operationalized through this methodology, can assist long term decision making and support strategic infrastructure planning.

Adolescents' Social Norms across Family, Peer, and School Settings: Linking Social Norm Profiles to Adolescent Risky Health Behaviors.

Social norms around adolescent risky health behaviors have been often studied in separate developmental settings (e.g., family norms, peer norms), and little is known regarding the overall patterns of social norms across contexts and how they influence adolescent risky health behaviors. This study explored profiles of social norms around risky health behaviors across family, peer, and school settings, using data from 11,086 adolescents (50% female; 49% White, 22% Black, 18% Latinx, 8% Asian American, 3% other race/ethnicities) in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health. Five profiles of social norms around risky health behaviors emerged. Only a small portion of the sample experienced either congruent-restrictive (6%) or congruent-permissive (10%) social norms across settings. The majority experienced incongruent social norms, including the developmentally normative-low risk (39%), developmentally normative-high risk (40%), and resilient (5%) profiles. Adolescents with the congruent-restrictive profile and developmentally normative-low risk profiles exhibited the least risky health behaviors over time, followed by those with the resilient profile, and adolescents with the developmentally normative-high risk and the congruent-permissive profile exhibited the greatest risky health behaviors over time. Each profile was associated with unique developmental, socio-demographic, and psychosocial characteristics. The findings highlighted the complexity of social norms across contexts and the developmental versus risky natures of these social norm profiles.

Predictors of organizational resilience by factorial analysis

The global economy is characterized by a progressive complexity, uncertainty, and volatility, which exert intense pressures to organizations and confronts them, with increasing frequency, to disruptive and unexpected events. In such environments, some organizations develop a resilience profile to increase the capacity to anticipate, adapt, and recover equilibrium or even, gain a new advantage position after the disruption. In this research, the factors of organizational resilience (OR) are identified and a structural equations model is developed. The article discusses the theoretical background and the literature of the resilience factors, and proposes their classification, which is used for the development of a questionnaire for the determination of the relative importance of the factors in several industrial sectors. The internal consistency of the questionnaire was validated with the Cronbach’s α coefficient and was applied to a sample of 159 manufacturing companies of the twin plant “maquiladora” industry of Ciudad Juarez, México, using a convenience sampling method. The key driver factors related to the development of OR are identified employing a partial least squares structural equation modeling approach, also is developed a structural model as a predictor of OR and its effectiveness, covering the description of the proposed model. By hypotheses tests, it is verified that resilient leadership explains the role of variables related to the development of OR, having a high influence in the organizational culture and in the capacity to organize and manage operations, being these three contributors, the drivers of the adaptation capacity that has a direct relation to the development of resilience.

“Livestock for resilience”: Revisiting the role of livestock in the major agricultural production systems of the MENA region

This paper aims to analyze the contribution of livestock to the resilience of major agricultural systems in the MENA region. We considered study areas from Jordan, Tunisia, and Morocco. We started by providing a typology of resilience profiles of production systems in these study areas and then we calculated resilience indexes for the identified farm types in the different countries. Secondly, we analyzed the role of livestock in each of these systems by testing the correlation between a set of livestock variables and the resilience indexes. Results show that livestock is playing a crucial role in enhancing agricultural systems resilience in the MENA region. Mixed crops-livestock systems, in addition to the pastoral production systems, identified in the considered countries, were found to have significantly high resilience indexes. Beside being an important source of income in the dry rain fed areas, animal heads are being considered as assets that could be easily converted into cash to face financial shortage and crisis. Our results also show that livestock producers appear to be more socially engaged and more open to their neighborhood, this is mainly due to practicing transhumance and sharing rangeland with other farmers, which enhances their positioning over the resilience scale. Acknowledgement : This paper has partly benefited from the financial support of the Consortium Research Program (CRP) on Livestock, Led by ILRI. Data of the paper has been collected during the CRP Dryland System. The paper also benefited from financial support of the Erasmus Mundus program.

Developing the resilient project professional: examining the student experience

PurposeResilience development during university can increase the likelihood of positive employment outcomes for project management graduates in what is known as a stressful profession where the prevalence of project failure, job insecurity, and burnout is high. However, a focus on student resilience in project management education is scarce. The purpose of this paper is to address this gap by establishing a baseline profile of resilience for project management students, identifying priority areas of resilience development and exploring the relationship between resilience and well-being.Design/methodology/approachIn total, 292 Australian students undertaking project management studies completed a survey comprising of the Resilience at University scale, the Short Warwick–Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale and an item assessing sleep adequacy.FindingsA resilience profile for undergraduate, postgraduate, male and female project management students was calculated. The resilience profile identified differences according to gender, and between undergraduate and postgraduate students. Mental well-being and adequate sleep were found to be significantly related to resilience.Practical implicationsFindings support the call for a greater emphasis on resilience development in the project management curriculum for undergraduates and postgraduates. One priority area likely to facilitate resilience is the ability to maintain perspective. As well as supporting academic achievement, it will assist graduates to navigate through complex, uncertain and challenging project environments.Originality/valueThis is the first known study of resilience for students undertaking project management studies in higher education.

What are the advantages of living in a community? A microbial biofilm perspective!

Biofilm formation is the preferred mode of growth lifestyle for many microorganisms, including bacterial and fungal human pathogens. Biofilm is a strong and dynamic structure that confers a broad range of advantages to its members, such as adhesion/cohesion capabilities, mechanical properties, nutritional sources, metabolite exchange platform, cellular communication, protection and resistance to drugs (e.g., antimicrobials, antiseptics, and disinfectants), environmental stresses (e.g., dehydration and ultraviolet light), host immune attacks (e.g., antibodies, complement system, antimicrobial peptides, and phagocytes), and shear forces. Microbial biofilms cause problems in the hospital environment, generating high healthcare costs and prolonged patient stay, which can result in further secondary microbial infections and various health complications. Consequently, both public and private investments must be made to ensure better patient management, as well as to find novel therapeutic strategies to circumvent the resistance and resilience profiles arising from biofilm-associated microbial infections. In this work, we present a general overview of microbial biofilm formation and its relevance within the biomedical context.

Measuring Urban Resilience in Indian Cities

Increased complexity in managing and recovering from the stresses and shocks threatening the world’s population has led to an interest in policy development for resilience. There are many discussions on developing resilience through integrating different strategies in development plans and disaster management plans. Lately, the attention has been shifted to understand the city’s inbuilt resilience to bounce back from different shocks and stresses. The overall objective of this paper is to assess the resilience of a city using resilience profile and the city resilience index. The paper also examines the applicability of indicators used in developed countries for measurement of Resilience in India’s context.

Profiles of Psychological Resilience in College Students With Disabilities

The present article reports on research conducted to identify profiles of psychological resilience using factor mixture models. We also examine gender as a predictor of resilience profile membership and career optimism, academic satisfaction, and psychological well-being as outcomes of profile membership. Based on resilience data from university students with disabilities, factor mixture modeling revealed three distinct profiles of resilience (viz., “vulnerable,” “spirituality-dominant,” and “engaged-resilient”). Results also revealed that females were almost 4 times as likely to be in the spirituality-dominant profile than the vulnerable profile. Finally, distal outcome analyses revealed that career optimism, academic satisfaction, and well-being were higher in the engaged-resilient profile than the other profiles. Notably, spirituality-dominant and vulnerable individuals possessed about the same levels of career optimism, satisfaction, and well-being. The findings have important implications for the theory and assessment of resilience, suggesting the tenability of a person-centered assessment of psychological resilience.

MicroRNA and mRNA profiles in ventral tegmental area relevant to stress-induced depression and resilience

Chronic stress with lack of reward presumably may impair brain reward circuit, leading to major depressive disorder (MDD). Most individuals experiencing chronic stress do not suffer from MDD, i.e., resilience, implying the presence of endogenous anti-depression in the brain. Molecular mechanisms underlying stress-induced depression versus resilience were investigated. Mice were treated by chronic unpredictable mild stress (CUMS) for four weeks. Their mood state was assessed by behavioral tasks, such as sucrose preference, Y-maze and forced swimming testes. To reveal comprehensive molecular profiles of major depression versus resilience, mRNA and microRNA profiles were analyzed by high-throughput sequencing in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) harvested from control, CUMS-susceptible and CUMS-resilience mice. In data analyses of control versus CUMS-susceptible mice as well as control versus CUMS-resilience mice, 1.5 fold ratio in reads per kilo-base per million reads was set as the threshold to judge the involvement of mRNAs and microRNAs in the CUMS, depression or resilience. The downregulation of synaptic vesicle cycle, neurotrophin, GABAergic synapse and morphine addiction as well as the upregulation of transmitter release, calcium signal and cAMP-dependent response element binding are associated to CUMS-susceptibility. The downregulation of tyrosine metabolism and protein process in endoplasmic reticulum as well as the upregulation of amino acid biosynthesis, neuroactive ligand-receptor interaction and dopaminergic synapse are associated to CUMS-resilience. Therefore, the impairment of neurons and GABA/dopaminergic synapses in the VTA is associated with major depression. The upregulation of these entities is associated with resilience. Consistent results obtained from analyzing mRNAs and microRNAs as well as using different approaches strengthen our finding and conclusion.

Are alexithymia and empathy predicting factors of the resilience of medical residents in France?

ObjectivesTo explore resilience, resilience predicting factors and resilience distribution in French medical residents. MethodsA cross-sectional study was conducted in which general practice residents (n = 380) were asked to answer the Jefferson Scale of Physician Empathy, the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale, and the Toronto Alexithymia Scale. One hundred thirty-seven (137) responses were collected. The scores of the different scales have been calculated. The score differences were examined using the Student’s t-test or analysis of variance. The correlations were estimated using the Pearson correlation coefficient. The relationships between scores were analysed by multiple linear regression. The heterogeneity of the sample was examined by non-hierarchical cluster analysis. ResultsResilience and empathy were positively correlated (r(135) = .36, p< .001). Alexithymia was negatively correlated with resilience, r(135) = -.40,p<.001, and empathy, r(135) = -.38, p<.001. Resilience was influenced by alexithymia, b = -.284, p = .001, empathy, b= .255, p = .002, gender (female < male), b = -.231, p = .002 and year of formation, β= .157, p = .036. Two clusters of residents were characterized. They differed by their empathy and resilience profiles and by alexithymia trait. ConclusionsAlexithymia, empathy, gender and year of formation correspond to predicting factors of resilience. This suggests that the resilience of vulnerable residents can be enhanced by increasing their empathy and by reducing their alexithymia. Thus, teaching teams could sustain their students’ well-being through educational programs aiming to develop their understanding of their own emotions and those of their patients.

A community of singers: employing exploratory cluster analysis to reveal profiles of psychosocial characteristics among members of a street choir for homeless and formerly homeless individuals

ABSTRACTThis exploratory study employed cluster analysis to identify profiles of resilience, social support, stress, and mental health among members of a homeless and formerly homeless street choir; we examined the association between choir attendance and cluster membership, and the interaction of cluster membership and race. Respondents (N = 111, 66% African American, 84% homeless) had participated in the choir for an average of 12 months (SD = 12.02). We stratified the analysis according to homelessness status. Among those housed, k-means cluster analysis revealed two profiles: (1) relatively resourced but lower resilience, and (2) high resilience. Three profiles emerged among the homeless: (1) psychologically vulnerable, high stress and mental health concerns; (2) relatively resourced, showing average levels of mental health concerns and social support, minimally elevated stress, and higher resilience; and (3) low resilience. Examining the interaction, non-African American, housed participants in the high resilience cluster reported the most frequent choir attendance (M = 4.00, SD = 0.00); among the homeless, non-African Americans in the psychologically vulnerable cluster reported the most frequent attendance (M = 3.88, SD = 1.25). Results support the need for programs that address higher order needs concurrently with housing; they also highlight the ongoing need to provide particular outreach to minority populations.

Multidimensional Resilience: Predictive and Construct Validity of the Individual, Family, and Community Resilience Profile

ABSTRACTFew measures parallel the robust depth offered in the existing multidimensional and ecologically informed theories of resilience. This study sought to evaluate the test–retest reliability, construct, and predictive validity of the individual, family, and community resilience resource profile (IFCR-R). The IFCR-R measures a family’s access to resilience resources and protective factors across multiple ecological levels. Confirmatory factor analysis was used with a sample of n = 810 low-income families. And 159 families completed multiple time point measures for test–retest reliability and predictive validity evaluation. Results of this study support the proposed multidimensional ecological structure of the IFCR-R and found that the IFCR-R offers an acceptable test–retest reliability and predictive validity for outcomes of mental and physical health.

Resilience mobility in Uganda: A dynamic analysis

Household resilience to food insecurity can be considered as the capacity that ensures stressors and shocks do not have long-lasting adverse development consequences; it is, nowadays, one of the key words in the policy debate on development. Measuring resilience capacity and how it varies over time is extremely significant for policy makers and people living in risk-prone environments. More specifically, there is a gap of empirical evidence about what drives changes in resilience capacity status (i.e. moving from a low resilience profile to a high one, and viceversa). This paper applies econometric techniques for estimating household resilience and adopts transition matrices to estimate how it changes over time. Finally, multinomial logit and bivariate probit models are estimated to identify the main drivers of change. Our study finds that female headed households are less likely to become the most resilient; also this paper demonstrates that education and participation to household enterprises are positively associated with increased resilience capacity. This paper innovates the resilience literature by providing an evidence based analysis of the main drivers of resilience; it brings this evidence in the Uganda’s context, focusing the attention of the policy makers on sub-sample of population which are worse off. More generally, our study suggests that resilience enhancing policies can bridge humanitarian and development interventions by demonstrating how long-term perspectives (i.e. those investing in education) can lead to an immediate increase of resilience.

The nasopharyngeal microbiome.

Human microbiomes have received increasing attention over the last 10 years, leading to a pervasiveness of hypotheses relating dysbiosis to health and disease. The respiratory tract has received much less attention in this respect than that of, for example, the human gut. Nevertheless, progress has been made in elucidating the immunological, ecological and environmental drivers that govern these microbial consortia and the potential consequences of aberrant microbiomes. In this review, we consider the microbiome of the nasopharynx, a specific niche of the upper respiratory tract. The nasopharynx is an important site, anatomically with respect to its gateway position between upper and lower airways, and for pathogenic bacterial colonisation. The dynamics of the latter are important for long-term respiratory morbidity, acute infections of both invasive and non-invasive disease and associations with chronic airway disease exacerbations. Here, we review the development of the nasopharyngeal (NP) microbiome over the life course, examining it from the early establishment of resilient profiles in neonates through to perturbations associated with pneumonia risk in the elderly. We focus specifically on the commensal, opportunistically pathogenic members of the NP microbiome that includes Streptococcus pneumoniae, Staphylococcus aureus, Haemophilus influenzae and Moraxella catarrhalis. In addition, we consider the role of relatively harmless genera such as Dolosigranulum and Corynebacterium. Understanding that the NP microbiome plays such a key, beneficial role in maintaining equilibrium of commensal species, prevention of pathogen outgrowth and host immunity enables future research to be directed appropriately.

An Analytic Framework to Assess Organizational Resilience.

BackgroundResilience engineering is a paradigm for safety management that focuses on coping with complexity to achieve success, even considering several conflicting goals. Modern sociotechnical systems have to be resilient to comply with the variability of everyday activities, the tight-coupled and underspecified nature of work, and the nonlinear interactions among agents. At organizational level, resilience can be described as a combination of four cornerstones: monitoring, responding, learning, and anticipating.MethodsStarting from these four categories, this article aims at defining a semiquantitative analytic framework to measure organizational resilience in complex sociotechnical systems, combining the resilience analysis grid and the analytic hierarchy process.ResultsThis article presents an approach for defining resilience abilities of an organization, creating a structured domain-dependent framework to define a resilience profile at different levels of abstraction, and identifying weaknesses and strengths of the system and potential actions to increase system's adaptive capacity. An illustrative example in an anesthesia department clarifies the outcomes of the approach.ConclusionThe outcome of the resilience analysis grid, i.e., a weighed set of probing questions, can be used in different domains, as a support tool in a wider Safety-II oriented managerial action to bring safety management into the core business of the organization.

Reconsidering disaster resilience: a nonlinear systems paradigm in agricultural communities in Southern Africa

Disasters continue to have a dramatic impact on lives, livelihoods and environments communities depend on. In response to these losses, the global community has developed various theories, assessment methodologies and policies aimed at reducing global losses. A contemporary outcome of these interventions is to build the disaster resilience. However, despite the disaster resilience-building endeavours espoused by policies, theories and methodologies, very little progress is being made in reducing disaster losses. This paper argues that a possible reason behind the limitations of current resilience-building policies and methodologies could be that most of these policies are based a mechanistic scientific paradigm that places an emphasis on system components that are perceived to build resilience and not the function of systems as a whole. This often leads to resilience-building initiatives that are based on a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach. This paper argues for the use of a complex adaptive systems approach to building resilience. This approach argues that contextual factors within different social systems will have a nonlinear affect on disaster resilience-building efforts. Therefore, it is crucial to move away from ‘one-size-fits-all’ approaches to more flexible approaches to building resilience. These hypotheses are tested by means of a correlation statistical analysis of agricultural communities in Southern Africa. Results of this analysis indicate that unique resilience profiles are evident in almost all of the communities studied. This indicates that resilience is not the same for everybody, and that resilience-building endeavours should be flexible enough to be adapted for different contexts.

Adolescents’ experiences of therapeutic relationships at high and low levels of risk and resilience

Engaging adolescents in treatment requires professionals to negotiate relationship boundaries in ways that young people experience as therapeutic. For this study, we used qualitative data from a mixed methods investigation of 85 young people ages 12-19 who were either clients of two or more human services (n=61) or selected from a convenience sample of young people attending school in the same communities as the service users (n=24). By sorting participants into four groups based on their risk and resilience scores calculated during the quantitative phase of the research, patterns emerged in the quality of the relationships young people reported as the most therapeutic. Findings show that youth at higher levels of risk exposure preferred looser professional boundaries (a real relationship) in their interactions with their workers while those with higher resilience scores described positive relationships with professionals that included more structure, greater expectations and firmer boundaries. Findings suggest that the quality of adolescent client-professional relationships should vary depending on the risk and resilience profiles of the youth.

Syndemic Risk Classes and Substance Use Problems among Adults in High-Risk Urban Areas: A Latent Class Analysis.

Substance use problems tend to co-occur with risk factors that are especially prevalent in urban communities with high rates of poverty. The present study draws on Syndemics Theory to understand profiles of risk and resilience and their associations with substance use problems in a population at risk for adverse outcomes. African-American/Black and Hispanic heterosexual adults (N = 2,853) were recruited by respondent-driven sampling from an urban area with elevated poverty rates, and completed a structured assessment battery covering sociodemographics, syndemic factors (that is, multiple, co-occurring risk factors), and substance use. More than one-third of participants (36%) met criteria for either an alcohol or a drug problem in the past year. Latent class analysis identified profiles of risk and resilience, separately for women and men, which were associated with the probability of a substance use problem. Almost a third of women (27%) and 38% of men had lower risk profiles—patterns of resilience not apparent in other types of analyses. Profiles with more risk and fewer resilience factors were associated with an increased probability of substance use problems, but profiles with fewer risk and more resilience factors had rates of substance use problems that were very similar to the general adult population. Relative to the lowest risk profile, profiles with the most risk and fewest resilience factors were associated with increased odds of a substance use problem for both women [adjusted odds ratio (aOR) = 8.50; 95% CI: 3.85–18.74] and men (aOR = 11.68; 95% CI: 6.91–19.74). Addressing syndemic factors in substance use treatment and prevention may yield improved outcomes.

A longitudinal study of the profiles of psychological thriving, resilience, and loss in people with inflammatory bowel disease.

Despite the toll of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) on adjustment, many patients are resilient to the challenges associated with living with IBD, and successfully cope with their illness and thrive. Yet there is little research on why some individuals with IBD enter a trajectory of growth, while others may struggle to adapt. The aim of this study was to investigate the adjustment-related factors that distinguished thriving, resilience, and loss in people with IBD across personal growth, life satisfaction, and relationship quality domains. Prospective cohort design with two data collection points, 6months apart. From a sample of 420 people with active IBD who completed an online survey, 152 participants completed the follow-up survey and were included in the analyses. Participants completed measures of thriving, and cognitive, affective, social, and disease-related variables known to predict adjustment. Time 1 ANCOVAs and pairwise comparisons controlling for demographics distinguished loss from resilience and thriving on the four outcomes - coping efficacy, illness acceptance, depressive symptoms, and perceived social support - for all three domains. Time 2 ANCOVAs and pairwise comparisons controlling for baseline outcomes revealed that the Time thriving categories predicted differences in Time 2 adjustment, mainly for the life satisfaction domain, with those experiencing loss reporting poorer adjustment than those experiencing resilience and thriving. Findings highlight the distinctions among profiles of thriving, resilience, and loss in adjustment to IBD, and suggest that strategies that enhance coping and address depressive symptoms may optimize thriving in the context of IBD. Statement of contribution What is already known on this subject? Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is associated with depression, poor coping, and stressful symptoms. Previous research has focused mainly on poor adjustment to IBD rather than on positive growth. There is little research on why some patients with IBD thrive or are resilient, while others struggle to adapt. What does this study add? This study is the first to longitudinally examine the profiles of thriving, resilience, and loss in individuals with IBD. The thriving profiles differed in coping efficacy, illness acceptance, depressive symptoms, and social support outcomes at Time 1, and predicted adjustment at T2 mainly for the life satisfaction domain. Strategies that enhance coping and social support may optimize thriving in the context of IBD.

Stress Resiliency Practices in Neonatal Nurses.

Multiple environmental changes were experienced in a large level III neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) causing a perception of work-related stress leading to high nurse turnover, decreased engagement, and decreased satisfaction. To identify a preintervention measure of perceived stress resiliency and ranking of interpretive styles in a population of neonatal, bedside registered nurses faced with a change in the physical practice environment. A descriptive, cross-sectional, correlational design was used to measure stress resiliency. The Stress Resiliency Profile (SRP) questionnaire was administered to a convenience sample of 48 neonatal bedside nurses. The SRP identifies 3 distinct interpretive styles as constructs of stress resiliency including deficiency focusing (negative thinking), necessitating (managing forced change), and skill recognition. Statistical analysis was used to describe associations between ages, years of experience, and resiliency. Results showed skill recognition to be significantly lower than expected in participants 40 years and older. Also, participants with greater than 5 years of NICU experience revealed low to moderate levels of resiliency. Although skill is critical in nursing, it may not be the key factor in reducing the perception of work-related stress. Implementation of interventions targeting interpretative styles known to enhance resiliency may promote positive coping and quality change management. Baseline resiliency data are necessary to guide unit leaders to manage future challenges found in evolving NICU nurse practice environments. More research is warranted to determine the generalizability of study results as healthcare organizations strive to implement best practices, control costs, and deliver safe, quality care.