Stronger together? Redefining social cohesion role in building disaster-resilient communities

Environmental disasters impact people’s lives adversely each year. Since social cohesion is considered to be a determinant element of resilient recovery, this research aimed to identify how social cohesion can be reinforced to increase community resilience to environmental disruptions. This sequential mixed-method research included two steps: understanding the main factors impacting a resilient recovery and ways to increase community resilience. Four communities in Puerto Rico were selected as the case study. Two rounds of interviews were conducted and analyzed qualitatively to address the research objectives. The results showed the most critical internal and external factors improving resilience in disaster recovery phases and ways to reinforce community resilience pre-disaster. The results also led to a conceptual framework for improving social cohesion and community resilience to better respond to environmental shocks. The findings offered a deeper insight into how communities respond to and recover from environmental shocks, identified the influential internal and external factors impacting recovery, and presented strategies to enhance them, which facilitates the integration of these factors by policymakers in disaster mitigation and recovery phases more effectively to help communities become more resilient to environmental disruptions.