Project researches community resilience
Jasmine Hayes, a master’s student in East Carolina University’s Department of Public Health, has been awarded funding to study resilience in rural communities following natural disasters.
The $10,000 grant from N.C. Sea Grant and the N.C. Water Resources Research Institute will be used to conduct focus groups and ultimately improve the understanding of how individuals and communities respond after major storms, flooding and other disasters. The Disaster Resilience Program will be conducted in Pitt and Robeson counties.
Jasmine Hayes has received funding to study community resilience. (Photo by Cliff Hollis)
“We chose Pitt County because it was affected in 1999 by Hurricane Floyd, and those same communities were affected again in 2016 by Hurricane Matthew,” Hayes said. “We chose Robeson County because it’s the third-highest poverty stricken county in N.C., and also it had the highest flooding among 50 counties that were affected by Hurricane Matthew.”
Hayes is seeking members of the community to share their experiences.
“From those focus groups we want to allow people a voice that they may not have had to speak and tell their story, so that we can better assess community leaders and those programs that provide assistance and help to people who have been affected by hurricanes and disasters,” she said. “We wanted to get the perspective of community members that have been affected, to get a better understanding of what they’ve gone through, the struggles, how they feel like things could be improved for future disasters in our community.”
Suzanne Lea, associate professor in the Department of Public Health, said the study will help to articulate the perceptions and behaviors that influence how people adapt after a flooding event.
“Collectively, we aim to understand how individual resilience contributes to community resilience,” she said. “At the conclusion of this project, residents of eastern North Carolina will have helped identify strategies that enhance recovery from flooding events.”
The project’s findings will be shared with local governments and aid agencies to help in shaping response efforts for future flooding events.
For more information or to participate in the focus groups, contact Hayes at 252.744.2629.
-by Jules Norwood