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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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Older people as assets in disaster preparedness, response and recovery
— lessons from regional Australia | | Author(s) | Amanda Howard, Tamara Blakemore, Miriam Bevis |
| Journal title | Ageing and Society, vol 37, no 3, March 2017 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press, March 2017 |
| Pages | pp 517-536 |
| Source | cambridge.org/aso |
| Keywords | Disasters [natural] ; Coordination ; Interaction [welfare services] ; Voluntary work [elderly] ; Participation ; Community work ; Qualitative Studies ; Regional ; Australia. |
| Annotation | This article reports on findings from a qualitative research study on natural disaster preparedness in 'at risk' population groups in regional Australia. In particular, it reports on findings highlighting the key and often unrecognised role played by many older people in developing and maintaining local informal networks, activated repeatedly before, during and after natural disasters. The article outlines major themes in recent literature on community resilience and social capital in disaster preparedness, response and recovery; and the design and implementation of the current study in which, 17 focus groups were held with 'at risk' groups across three communities and findings in relation to the role of older people. The implications from these findings are discussed in the context of community-based disaster preparedness strategies. Findings point to older people as critical, community assets in local neighbourhoods, contributing both their experience and relationship-building capacity to prepare themselves for natural disasters. In addition, there was clear evidence of older people sharing resources and experience in support of others of all ages in responding to and recovering from natural disasters. Older people in the research were found both to generate and mobilise social capital at a local level in disaster preparedness, response and recovery. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-170217203 A |
| Classmark | RG: QAJ: QK6: GHH: TMB: IGC: 3DP: 5CP: 7YA |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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