The newly-launched Community Resilience and Disaster Management Program in the UAB Center for the Study of Community Health is an innovative initiative designed to identify 21st century health challenges and help empower disadvantaged communities to better meet those challenges. As Hurricane Katrina made starkly clear, and as research and field experience have shown more generally, the impacts from disasters often fall most heavily on disadvantaged households and communities. This is true in the case of natural disasters, and it is also true with respect to human-made disasters involving industrial hazards. To make matters worse, poor and minority communities are often the least able to cope with disasters and their effects. The availability of fewer financial and other resources, less access to emergency planning decision-making channels, and lower levels of education and literacy all contribute to a reduced capacity to undertake preparedness and response measures needed to best protect people’s health and reduce morbidity and mortality.
While government has spent large sums of money to harden structures and strengthen facilities against disaster, far less attention has been devoted to the human factor. Yet increasingly, the human factor is coming to be understood as critical. In particular, there is a growing recognition of the need to build community resilience, especially in the case of disadvantaged communities. This need to enhance community resilience becomes even more pressing when one considers that, for some emerging disaster and emergency situations, agencies are advising local communities to be able to “go it alone” until outside help arrives one or two days later. In short, disasters pose a serious and growing health threat to disadvantaged communities, and a central part of addressing this threat must involve utilizing the insights, experience and tools of health promotion to increase community resilience.
The new initiative is unique: it represents the first time any CDC-funded prevention center in the U.S. has included disasters in the range of problems it addresses. The UAB Center for the Study of Community Health is especially well qualified to take on this crucial emerging role. By tapping well established community ties, and by utilizing robust research, communication and training components, the Center is positioned to partner with poor and disadvantaged communities to enhance resilience to disasters. Under the leadership of Dr. Steven M. Becker, the Community Resilience and Disaster Management Program brings to the Center extensive real-world and research-based experience. Specialized services available include:
- Tailored crisis and emergency risk communication
- Preparation and evaluation of emergency messages for low literacy audiences
- Development of mechanisms for stakeholder involvement in disaster planning and training
- Design of disaster-related tools to foster awareness and efficacy for at-risk populations