title: Household preparedness is not enough: the challenges and opportunities in assessing community readiness for disasters.
abstract: The public health community faces numerous challenges in measuring community preparedness and resilience. This study aimed to identify existing measures of partnership, self-sufficiency, and social connectedness, as well as gaps and opportunities in the measurement of community preparedness and resilience. To accomplish these aims, the study team conducted a broad environmental scan to identify a list of possible measures in these areas and then assessed these measures using a set of standard criteria and feedback from key informants. Results suggest that while there is great interest in quantifying community preparedness, existing data have major limitations. There is a need for more measures of organizational and network activity and measures in the area of community engagement and empowerment.
authors.affiliation: RAND Corporation, Arlington, Virginia, USA. luscherp@rand.org
authors.forename: Lori
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Uscher-Pines
authors.forename: Anita
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Chandra
authors.forename: Joie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Acosta
mesh_terms: D019058:Community Networks; D004189:Disaster Planning; D006306:Health Surveys; D006801:Humans; D015397:Program Evaluation / Q000379:methods*; D012449:Safety; D020377:Self Efficacy; D060756:Social Networking; D014481:United States