Community health and disaster recovery

The purpose of this chapter is to give the reader a sense for current approaches to disaster recovery in relation to community health. In terms of learning outcomes, the aim is to help readers understand important terms and important historical information, including an almost exclusive focus in the past on reactive and expert-based models of disaster recovery. Related, a main learning outcome is to understand the rationale and research that has underpinned a move to more preventative and community-oriented approaches to disaster recovery. This chapter includes a discussion of these approaches including compatibility of current models with ICF criteria. Several discussion, case- and research-based examples and illustrations are also provided to amplify important points raised in the chapter.