How Do We Build Community Resilience to Disasters in a Changing Climate? A review of interventions to improve and measure public health outcomes in the Northeastern United States

Climate change-related natural disasters, including wildfires and extreme weather events, such as intense storms, floods, and heatwaves, are increasing in frequency and intensity. These events are already profoundly affecting human health in the Northeastern United States and globally, challenging the ability of communities to prepare, respond, and recover. This paper examines the peer-reviewed literature on community resilience interventions and metrics that may apply to the Northeastern region of the United States. The overarching goal of this document is to inform local public health practitioners and planners about the availability of evidence-based strategies to strengthen and measure community resilience to climate change-related disasters. We were interested in metrics that were derived from publicly available data sources and that were developed for use by communities at a local scale, and accessible to more modestly resourced municipalities and county health agencies. We searched the literature for papers describing the strategies employed to increase community resilience and the metrics used to measure resilience as an outcome of those strategies. Specifically, we looked for those strategies or interventions that aimed to meet the U.S. Centers for Disease Control’s standards for building community resilience as part of reaching the United States’ National Preparedness Goal. Our search revealed 205 articles on community resilience in the Northeast: of those, five described evidence-based strategies. This paper discusses the five selected strategies, their applicability at a local public health level, and the metrics used to measure the extent to which community resilience had been strengthened. The paper shares two relevant case studies: 1) in Los Angeles County, to demonstrate the use of metrics in a multi-year community resilience intervention; and 2) in New Hampshire, to show how an intervention emerged through the development of a climate and health adaptation plan. We recommend the COAST project, COPEWELL Rubric for self-assessment, and Ready CDC intervention as examples of strategies that could be adapted by any community engaged in building community resilience

U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit Road Test: Bridging the Data-Practice Divide A summary report by Antioch University New England Center for Climate Resilience and Community Preparedness April 2015

Antioch University’s Center for Climate Preparedness and Community Resilience developed an online Facilitated Community of Practice model (FCoP) to convene 29 end-user decision-makers, working with 25 Eastern United States coastal communities, to “road test” the U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit. FCoP participants (e.g., planners, emergency preparedness and municipal administration personnel, natural resource specialists) represented communities from Norfolk, VA, to Rockland, ME. The project was designed to provide constructive feedback to federal agencies to inform the usability of the toolkit for local decision makers and planners. The project also was intended to contribute to two broader outcomes: 1. building resilience in Eastern coastal communities; and 2. piloting a replicable model for networking and building the capacity of decision-makers in all regions of the U.S. for the impacts of a changing climate. The FCoP included online exercises comprising the following: an introduction to the toolkit; research questions each participant developed regarding resilience challenges in their coastal communities; and discussions through synchronous and asynchronous forums. An exit survey measured participants’ satisfaction using the toolkit, content integrity, usability, and interactive influence with the toolkit developers. Key findings included the priority theoretical and applied climate resilience interests pertinent to coastal communities and the importance of peer-to-peer learning and networking, using an online FCoP, to strengthen capacity for climate resilience. Keywords: climate change resilience, climate change adaptation, coastal flood risk, capacity building, online decision support, evaluation, local governmen

Fossil Fuel Divestment: The Power of Positively Deviant Leadership for Catalyzing Climate Action and Financing Clean Energy

This chapter highlights the actions of leaders pursuing fossil fuel divestment: selling financial investments in the world’s largest fossil fuel extraction companies, and reinvesting those resources in clean energy. The chapter presents two new conceptual models: mission-aligned investing, at the organizational level, and mission-aligned leadership, at the individual level. These models exemplify and provide concrete structure for organizational leaders and others who seek to improve institutional capacity to address climate change (SDG target 13.3). How do our financial resources perpetuate fossil fuel combustion? How are we promoting clean, renewable, socially just energy sources? Learning from the experience of the change leaders studied here can deepen understanding of how organizational stewards can proactively, successfully, and effectively advance climate action and clean energy innovation by leveraging organizational assets.https://aura.antioch.edu/facchapters/1023/thumbnail.jp