Impact of culture on community resilience in natural disaster situations

Abstract

The consideration of cultural issues for the management of public health emergencies is essential, because it is acknowledged in risk and crisis studies that culture (e.g., beliefs or values) influences the perception of people and their behaviour during and after critical incidents. In this research culture is defined as set of basic assumptions, shared solutions to problems and their internal integration. The objective of this study is to analyse the impact of culture on community resilience during and after three natural disasters that occurred in Europe, and second, to draw conclusions for the supply of public health measures for further critical incidents.