Responding to everyday problems and crises: Measuring community resilience

Area of Science:

• Disaster Management
• Community Psychology
• Public Health

Background:

• Community resilience is vital for navigating everyday challenges and recovering from disasters like pandemics.
• The SARS-CoV-2 outbreak highlighted the importance of community resilience in recovery efforts.
• Existing tools for assessing community resilience require adaptation for diverse linguistic and cultural contexts.

Purpose of the Study:

• To adapt and validate the Communities Advancing Resilience Toolkit (CART) Assessment Survey for Portuguese-speaking populations.
• To provide a reliable instrument for measuring community resilience in the context of disasters, including pandemics.
• To evaluate the psychometric properties of the adapted CART survey.

Main Methods:

• The study adapted the CART Assessment Survey into Portuguese.
• A confirmatory factor analysis was employed to assess the instrument's reliability and validity.
• Measurement invariance tests were conducted across different age groups.

Main Results:

• The Portuguese version of the CART survey demonstrated reliability.
• Confirmatory factor analysis confirmed a strong relationship between observed variables and underlying constructs of community resilience.
• The instrument showed measurement invariance across age groups, indicating consistent properties.

Conclusions:

• The adapted Portuguese CART survey is a valuable and robust instrument for measuring community resilience.
• This validated tool can support disaster management policies and practices in Portuguese-speaking communities.
• The study reinforces the importance of culturally adapted instruments for assessing community resilience globally.