Evaluating university emergency resilience with a focus on student safety and health

Universities are increasingly exposed to emergencies that threaten student safety and health, yet existing studies on university emergency resilience remain largely institution-centered and pay insufficient attention to student-oriented resilience capacities.

This study develops a student-oriented university emergency resilience (UER) evaluation framework focused on student safety and health. A five-dimension, 28-indicator system was constructed through semi-structured interviews, thematic analysis and questionnaire survey. Comprehensive weights were determined by integrating the Analytic Hierarchy Process and the coefficient of variation method. Central South University (CSU), China, was selected as the empirical case. Its UER was evaluated using characteristic-function fuzzy comprehensive evaluation, and a priority analysis was further conducted to identify the deficiencies that should be prioritized in remedial action.

CSU achieves a defuzzified comprehensive score of 3.5421, corresponding to Grade 4 ("Good"). Medical and Health Support Capacity and Campus Environment and Facility Safety Readiness perform relatively well, whereas Risk Communication and Information Accessibility is the weakest dimension. The priority analysis identified Academic Flexibility and Adjustment and Psychological Crisis Intervention Services as the most urgent deficiencies.

Although CSU demonstrates a generally good level of UER, its resilience remains uneven across dimensions, with the main weaknesses concentrated in communication, psychosocial support, and post-emergency continuity. This study extends institution-centered UER assessment by introducing a student safety- and health-oriented resilience framework that can support more targeted resilience improvement in universities.