Protocol for a community-engaged mixed-methods study for climate-related disaster preparedness and health care resilience in North Carolina

Background: Climate change-induced disasters pose an enormous risk to human health. With the risk of climate change disasters at an all-time high, it is imperative to strengthen the resilience of health and community systems. Working with community collaborators who provide services across the spectrum of the disaster cycle will make disaster preparedness plans context-specific, sustainable, and accepted by the community. Using evidence-based Implementation Science approaches can facilitate the development and evaluation of community-academic partnership initiatives to build responsive and resilient systems. Objective: To identify perceived gaps and needs, available resources, and collaborator engagement patterns of community organizations and state agencies across the disaster cycle in North Carolina. Methods: This framework-guided state-wide project will first use Hurricane Helene as a case study to deploy an initial survey to all community partners and state agencies that provided services in the response and recovery efforts in Western North Carolina, followed by focus group discussions to identify available resources, gaps, and needs that can be addressed through sustained partnerships. Anticipated results: The resulting quantitative and qualitative data will be used to create a virtual resource map for the community, to identify existing gaps in disaster response, and to identify key collaborators working in the disaster response sector in North Carolina. These results will ultimately lead to the formation of a community-academic coalition (DukeNC4Health) that will develop a community-engaged disaster preparedness strategy grounded in practice, education, research, and policy.