Community-Informed Strategies to Address Trauma and Enhance Resilience in Climate-Affected Communities

Trauma from natural disasters affects hurricane-impacted populations with accelerating frequency and often recurrently as a result of climate change. Policy guidance to support community resilience has emerged to mitigate trauma to populations facing disaster and climate change risk, but the guidance itself may be met with mistrust due to historic and recurrent government failures to support traumatized, hurricane-affected communities. The aim of the Community Resilience Learning Collaborative and Research Network study is to address trauma and improve community resilience in response to disaster and climate change-related events in South Louisiana. Key informant interviews from 47 community-based organizations across New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and Coastal Louisiana were analyzed and compared with the Key Messages of the 4th National Climate Assessment to determine efficient strategies for building resilience. Community-based organization interviewees emphasized the importance of organizing community-led coalitions and partnerships, implementing trauma-informed care in schools and health care settings, providing infrastructures and educational resources to navigate housing and financial barriers, and creating dialogue to better understand and accept climate change. The strategies revealed in the key informant interviews will be used to design the agency-level coalition-building interventions of Community Resilience Learning Collaborative and Research Network.