Increasing community resilience to disasters : understanding how individuals make meaning of hazard information, and how this relates to preparing for hazards

Research has shown that a number of individual, community and societal attributes can be used as indicators of community resilience. These indicators include outcome expectancy, action coping, articulation of problems, community participation, empowerment, social trust and self-efficacy (McClure et al., 1999; Paton, 2007; Paton et al. 2001a,b,c, 2000, 2005, 2006a,b; Ronan et al., 1998). A model of community resilience which incorporates these attributes was recently developed and tested (Paton, 2006; Paton, 2008). This model describes how interaction between person, community and societal (e.g., emergency management agency) characteristics influences people’s capacity to adapt to hazard consequences.