Building resilience: The relationship between information provided by municipal authorities during emergency situations and community resilience

Community resilience denotes a community's capacity to lead itself in order to overcome changes and crises. Leadership is a central element of community resilience. One of the responsibilities of municipal authorities and leadership during emergencies is to provide effective information that meets the population's needs. This cross-sectional study presents the relationship between satisfaction with information provided by the local municipality and community resilience scores measured using the Conjoint Community Resilience Assessment Measure (CCRAM). The study included 1139 adults (mean age 40.7 years) living in small to midsized communities. The CCRAM score was positively correlated with satisfaction with the information received from the municipality (r (1139) = 0.528,p < 0.001). Linear regression modeled the dependent variable CCRAM score. After adjusting for general covariates, municipal information satisfaction was positively associated with the CCRAM score (B = 0.265, p < 0.001, 95% CI = 0.231-0299), meaning that the more suitable the information was for population needs, the higher the community resilience. These results highlight the importance of the information provided by the municipal authorities to the population as a means to develop or enhance resilience for emergencies. This information is of utmost importance for decision makers and local leadership when developing policies for resilience building and planning communication with the population. (C) 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc.