Neighbors matter: Community cohesion boosts disaster resilience, Texas A&M study finds

(Press-News.org) A study from the Texas A&M University School of Public Health sheds new light on the relationship between community cohesion prior to a natural disaster and resilience after one, with possible policy applications for public health and emergency preparedness practitioners.

“Recent events have reminded us that resilience isn’t just about bricks and budgets,” said community health expert Garett T. Sansom, who led the study. “In part, it’s also about bonds between neighbors.”

Until now, he added, little has been known about the mechanisms by which cohesion influences recovery. To explore this issue — as well as how the relationship between cohesiveness and resilience varies by context — the researchers analyzed the aftermath of the 2015 Memorial Day Flood in Hays County, Texas, part of the Austin-Round Rock metropolitan area, and, at the time, home to about 158,000 residents.

Their research was funded by the Texas A&M Superfund Research Center and the National Science Foundation and published in Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness.

“Beginning that May 23, the Blanco and San Marcos rivers in Central Texas experienced historic flash flooding, causing at least a dozen deaths and destroying more than 2,000 homes in Hays County alone,” Sansom said.

The disaster launched significant local volunteer efforts, neighbor-to-neighbor assistance and grassroots recovery efforts that Sansom said indicated cohesion-driven resilience.

For their study, conducted in the summer and fall of 2022, the researchers — along with students from the School of Public Health’s EpiAssist program and community leaders from the Blanco River Academy — asked 128 county residents about their experiences with the flooding, including receipt of hazard warnings, housing damage, length of community residency and perceived recovery progress.

The survey also asked respondents for demographic information and opinions about the sense of community and empowerment they sensed in their neighborhoods.

A statistical analysis found a significant positive association between community cohesion and perceived resilience, while variables such as age, gender and socioeconomic status showed no significant relationships.

“These findings — like those of similar studies — underscore the importance of strong social ties in disaster recovery and resilience,” Sansom said.

In addition, he said they suggest that explicit strategies for building community trust and increasing volunteerism rates and civic engagement should be added to emergency preparedness programs.

“Communities that build strong social ties and mutual trust tend to recover much more quickly and smoothly following a catastrophe — but only if other resources and structural support are also present,” he said. “In other words, our study found that social cohesion is important to disaster resilience but does not guarantee it.”

Others on the research team were Lindsay Sansom and graduate students Lyssa Losa, Jacquita N.Johnson and Ruby Hernandez from the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, as well as faculty member Benika Dixon and graduate student TyKeara Mims from the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics.

By Ann Kellett, Texas A&M University School of Public Health

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