Community Resilience
Communities across the United States face hazards and disruptions that can strain local capacity and resources and affect public safety, infrastructure, and continuity of operations. Research helps leaders strengthen preparedness, improve response, and support recovery and reconstitution after disasters and other disruptive events.
Our work spans emergency management, resilience and continuity planning, infrastructure recovery, and cross-sector coordination. We help policymakers and practitioners compare options, prioritize investments, and design strategies that improve community resilience before, during, and after an incident.
The Challenge
As the United States faces larger disasters more frequently, understanding the best ways to prepare for, respond to, recover from, and mitigate the effects of disasters will become increasingly important—as will helping build capability at all levels of government and across the private and nonprofit sector.
A scene from Lahaina, Maui as rescue efforts were underway during the August 2023 wildfires
Photo by the U.S. Coast Guard
Mission Support
RAND brings its interdisciplinary talent pool to bear on a broad array of disaster types: natural disasters such as fires, hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, and pandemics; technological hazards, such as dam failures and industrial accidents; and human-made threats such as terrorist or cyberattacks, biological warfare, and radiological fallout. RAND is home to nationally recognized experts across multiple fields, including:
- Recovery planning and implementation
- Program assessment and process improvement
- Flood insurance
- Disaster cost analysis and evaluation
- Mitigating the effects of disasters
- Risk assessment
- Grant program analysis and support
- Emergency management training and education
- Change management and workforce planning
On this page, you'll find recent work on disaster management and resilience curated especially for the homeland security community. To view all of RAND's work on disaster management and resilience, visit our topic pages on Disaster Recovery, Emergency Preparedness, Flooding, and Community Resilience.
