Facilitating Partnerships With Community- and Faith-Based Organizations for Disaster Preparedness and Response: Results of a National Survey of Public Health Departments.

Objective: We identify characteristics of local health departments, which enhance collaborations with community- and faith-based organizations (CFBOs) for emergency preparedness and response.

Methods: Online survey data were collected from a sample of 273 disaster preparedness coordinators working at local health departments across the United States between August and December 2011.

Results: Using multiple linear regression models, we found that perceptions of CFBO trust were associated with more successful partnership planning (β=0.

An Ecosystems and Vulnerable Populations Perspective on Solastalgia and Psychological Distress After a Wildfire.

We studied the relationship between psychological distress and relative resource and risk predictors, including loss of solace from the landscape (solastalgia), one year after the Wallow Fire, in Arizona, United States. Solastalgia refers to the distress caused by damage to the surrounding natural environment and it has not been examined for its relationship to psychological health. Doing so opens avenues of research that inquire into how land management might be able to support improved community resilience and psychological health outcomes after a wildfire.

Reliability and validity of the Assessment for Disaster Engagement with Partners Tool (ADEPT) for local health departments.

Objective: This study presents reliability and validity findings for the Assessment for Disaster Engagement with Partners Tool (ADEPT), an instrument that can be used to monitor the frequency and nature of collaborative activities between local health departments (LHDs) and community-based organizations (CBOs) and faith-based organizations (FBOs) for disaster preparedness, response, and recovery.

Methods: We used formative research to develop the instrument by ranking LHDs according to their disaster outreach and engagement activities. We validated the scale through a 2011 national survey of disaster preparedness coordinators (n=273) working in LHDs.