Applying an Innovative Model of Disaster Resilience at the Neighborhood Level : The COPEWELL New York City Experience

Catherine C Slemp; Sarah Sisco; Marc C Jean; Munerah S Ahmed; Norma F Kanarek; Monika Erös-Sarnyai; Ingrid A Gonzalez; Takeru Igusa; Kathryn Lane; Fernando P Tirado; Maryellen Tria; Sen Lin; Valter N Martins; Sanjana Ravi; James M Kendra; Eric G Carbone; Jonathan M Links

doi:10.1177/0033354920938012

Applying an Innovative Model of Disaster Resilience at the Neighborhood Level : The COPEWELL New York City Experience

Public Health Rep. 2020 Sep/Oct;135(5):565-570. doi: 10.1177/0033354920938012. Epub 2020 Jul 31.

Authors

Catherine C Slemp¹, Sarah Sisco², Marc C Jean^{2

3}, Munerah S Ahmed⁴, Norma F Kanarek^{5

6}, Monika Erös-Sarnyai⁷, Ingrid A Gonzalez², Takeru Igusa⁸, Kathryn Lane³, Fernando P Tirado⁹, Maryellen Tria¹⁰, Sen Lin⁸, Valter N Martins¹¹, Sanjana Ravi¹², James M Kendra¹¹, Eric G Carbone³, Jonathan M Links⁵

Affiliations

¹ 161119 Independent Consultant, Public Health Policy and Practice, Milton, WV, USA.
² 2012 Office of Emergency Preparedness and Response, New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, New York, NY, USA.
³ Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA, USA.
⁴ 5939 Division of Environmental Health, New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, New York, NY, USA.
⁵ 25802 Center for Public Health Preparedness, Department of Environmental Health and Engineering, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA.
⁶ 1466 Department of Environmental Health and Engineering, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland, USA.
⁷ 1466 Office of Community Resilience, Division of Mental Hygiene, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA.
⁸ 1466 Department of Civil Engineering, Whiting School of Engineering, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA.
⁹ 5939 Center for Health Equity, Bronx Neighborhood Health Action Center, New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, New York, NY, USA.
¹⁰ 5939 Division of Prevention and Primary Care, New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, New York, NY, USA.
¹¹ 137755 Disaster Research Center, University of Delaware, Newark, DE, USA.
¹² 25802 Center for Health Security, Department of Environmental Health and Engineering, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA.

Abstract

Community resilience is a community's ability to maintain functioning (ie, delivery of services) during and after a disaster event. The Composite of Post-Event Well-Being (COPEWELL) is a system dynamics model of community resilience that predicts a community's disaster-specific functioning over time. We explored COPEWELL's usefulness as a practice-based tool for understanding community resilience and to engage partners in identifying resilience-strengthening strategies. In 2014, along with academic partners, the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene organized an interdisciplinary work group that used COPEWELL to advance cross-sector engagement, design approaches to understand and strengthen community resilience, and identify local data to explore COPEWELL implementation at neighborhood levels. The authors conducted participant interviews and collected shared experiences to capture information on lessons learned. The COPEWELL model led to an improved understanding of community resilience among agency members and community partners. Integration and enhanced alignment of efforts among preparedness, disaster resilience, and community development emerged. The work group identified strategies to strengthen resilience. Searches of neighborhood-level data sets and mapping helped prioritize communities that are vulnerable to disasters (eg, medically vulnerable, socially isolated, low income). These actions increased understanding of available data, identified data gaps, and generated ideas for future data collection. The COPEWELL model can be used to drive an understanding of resilience, identify key geographic areas at risk during and after a disaster, spur efforts to build on local metrics, and result in innovative interventions that integrate and align efforts among emergency preparedness, community development, and broader public health initiatives.

Keywords: community development; community resilience; cross-sector engagement; disaster resilience; linking preparedness; resilience; system dynamics modeling.

Publication types

Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.
Research Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S.

MeSH terms

Disasters / statistics & numerical data*
Humans
Models, Theoretical*
New York City
Residence Characteristics / statistics & numerical data*
Resilience, Psychological*
Social Capital*
Stress, Psychological*

Grants and funding

P01 TP000288/TP/OPHPR CDC HHS/United States