Climate change, though a global phenomenon, impacts communities in diverse and unequal ways. From direct effects such as heat waves, fire and smoke caused by extreme weather events causing injury and illness to more indirect shifts in the environment, the implications for human health are profound. Changing temperatures and altered rainfall patterns can lead to increased vulnerability to diseases, contaminated water exposure, and hazardous waste incidents. People with disabilities and access and functional needs are often left out of the emergency response and prehospital care system planning and they are often left vulnerable in mass disruption events.

Community resilience refers to a community’s ability to recover quickly and function well in the wake of a severe disturbance. It goes beyond the two traditional elements of disaster resilience—preparedness and response—to include mitigation and recovery.

The underlying logic behind the goal of community resilience is that if a community invests in connections, capacity, and resources at the individual, organizational, and community levels on a sustained basis, its overall resilience will increase.