Engaging Community Leaders in Sharing Local Knowledge for Emergency Preparedness to Leverage Communication and Trusted Assets for Vulnerable Populations

Abstract

Abstract Objective: Public health and emergency management agencies play a critical role in addressing the needs of vulnerable populations in preparation for and in response to emergencies. Identifying and leveraging community assets is a way to address such needs. This study focuses on the development of a process and tools to engage community leaders in sharing their knowledge about their community characteristics and assets useful for emergency planning. Methods: We conducted interviews with community leaders across five study sites with the goal of understanding what type of local knowledge community leaders are able to share in regard to emergency preparedness. Based on the interview results we developed and tested a mobile application as a mobile friendly directory of community assets. Results: We identified two main types of local knowledge about community assets for emergency preparedness: communication-based and trust-based local knowledge. We created an application to facilitate the sharing of such knowledge. Community leaders were able to share local knowledge across four areas: communication-based assets, trust-based assets, spatial-based assets and personal-preparedness assets. Conclusion: Community leaders’ engagement in preparedness efforts is important to identify community assets that can be leveraged to address the needs of the most vulnerable segments of a community.