Building Resilience in High-Stakes Environments: 5 Key Lessons From Disaster Medicine Specialists
The concept of resilience first gained widespread attention during the 1970s when a set of psychological studies analyzed victims of child abuse who had gone on to lead relatively normal and successful lives. Since then, resilience has become a key term in contemporary discourse, extending beyond psychological research and into various aspects of modern life, especially given the increasing frequency and intensity of natural and man-made disasters, warfare, and conflicts.
In a general sense, resilience is how someone or an organization bounces back from or adapts to adverse events, trauma, tragedy, or significant stress to establish a new normal. In the field of disaster medicine, the intersection of health and security is becoming increasingly significant amid the present landscape of diverse threats.
The prolonged nature of the COVID-19 pandemic underscored the necessity for sustained, long-term response and recovery strategies. It also highlighted the importance of a flexible approach, as public health and emergency policies had to swiftly adapt to changing circumstances.
The disaster management cycle is typically divided into two phases—pre-disaster, which involves prevention and preparedness efforts, and post-disaster, which focuses on response and recovery. Investing in these phases helps communities and healthcare systems withstand, adapt to, and recover from disasters, enhancing both immediate response capabilities and long-term sustainability.
There is a growing recognition of the value of investing in pre-disaster risk mitigation efforts. These efforts can save lives, are more cost-effective, and prove to be more sustainable in the long run.
Intentional violence, such as terrorism, presents unique challenges to public health and security operations. Disaster medicine fundamentally ensures that health systems can deliver the best possible care to vulnerable populations when a crisis occurs. It encompasses not only immediate care, but also risk mitigation, preparedness, and other proactive measures which enhance resilience and response capabilities.
Security practitioners even outside healthcare can learn some valuable lessons from disaster and counterterrorism medicine about resilience and pre-disaster planning.
Prepare for Unplanned Crisis Response and Communication
Planning is a critical component of disaster medicine. Organizations, both in healthcare and beyond, must develop response plans for unplanned, critical events. These critical events encompass any incident that can cause significant or unplanned interferences, from operational disruptions to loss of life, although every organization may have a different definition and threshold in identifying critical events. They can include natural disasters, industrial accidents, public health emergencies—like pandemics—and intentional acts of violence, such as a terrorist attacks.
The development of response plans should involve regular, realistic drills and simulations that include all stakeholders—employees, management, and external partners. Training staff on emergency operations and ensuring the rapid establishment of communication protocols with health-adjacent agencies is key.
Communication failures remain a critical weakness in crisis response. Clear and consistent communication is crucial; therefore organizations should establish multiple communication channels and ensure that stakeholders receive timely updates.
Technology can fail, and damage, interference, or overload to critical infrastructure—such as loss of power or telecom infrastructure damage—can lead to disruptions in usual modes of communications, like the internet or mobile phones. Advances in satellite communications will likely mitigate some of these risks, but relying on radio communications as a back up is still recommended and routinely taught to disaster specialists and other emergency service responders.
Psychological Resilience and Safety
The psychological impact of crises can be profound. Mental health support systems help individuals cope with trauma and mitigate long-term psychological effects. Consider offering access to counselling services, regular check-ins with peers, and companywide promotion of mental health awareness.
Creating a psychologically safe environment where individuals feel supported, can openly discuss their experiences, and are encouraged to seek help without stigma is essential for maintaining mental health and fostering resilience.
Integrated Risk Assessments and De-Siloing Partner Organizations
Conducting holistic and thorough risk assessments that consider a wide range of potential scenarios allows organizations to develop targeted mitigation strategies. Early integration and collaboration with non-health partner organizations, such as security agencies and local authorities, are critical for creating a unified and effective response plan.
De-siloing these efforts safeguards that all partners are on the same page and can work together seamlessly during a crisis. Organizations need to intentionally bring stakeholders together prior to a crisis, as they might not otherwise collaborate on an everyday basis. These stakeholders could include internal representatives from HR, risk, finance, travel, and other departments, as well as external providers, such as travel risk management firms that can review risk assessments and strategies.
Invest in Risk Reduction Strategies
Organizations should prioritize prevention and preparedness phases by developing comprehensive plans, allocating resources effectively, and maintaining a culture of flexibility. This approach allows for quick adaptation to changing circumstances and ensures a robust and resilient response to disasters.
Also, consider investing in redundant systems and backups. Guaranteeing that critical operations can continue during disruptions requires redundancy in systems and processes. This includes backup power supplies, alterative communication networks, decentralized data storage, and an agile, interchangeable workforce.
Community Engagement and Education
In a crisis, the impact of an event flows across demographics and departments, as well as creating ripple effects felt after the initial incident. Engaging both internal stakeholders and the broader community in preparedness efforts is vital for enhancing collective resilience.
Consider offering crisis leadership training across the entire organization. Organizations can host workshops that educate the community and their own employees, with attendees learning about preparedness measures. Feedback from these sessions allows for continuous improvement. Collaborating with local authorities and other partners further strengthens the overall response. This collective approach means that all internal and external members are informed and can actively contribute to resilience-building efforts.
For example, if an organization has offices in a region prone to earthquakes, it could coordinate education and training sessions that are open not only employees, but to the surrounding community as well.
Overreliance on Resilience
While resilience is vital for overcoming adversity, when it is overused or taken to an extreme it can lead someone or an entire organization to chase unattainable goals—such as attempting to eliminate all risks—resulting in false hope syndrome and ultimately distress.
Overemphasis of resilience refers to an overreliance on the idea that individuals should constantly bounce back from adversity while failing to acknowledge their limits or seek the necessary support. Overemphasis in this context can be detrimental, leading to burnout and harmful persistence. This approach can also cause someone to tolerate excessive adversity, compromising his or her self-awareness and causing them to set unrealistic goals. This misinterpretation often pressures individuals to endure undue stress or injuries, exacerbating their conditions, encouraging individuals to persist or remain in a challenging situation when he or she does not have the capacity to safely do so.
Organizations must strike a balance in promoting resilience by highlighting that it requires self-awareness and support, without overemphasizing individual resilience to the point of stigmatizing others with established healthy boundaries. By doing so, organizations can foster a more supportive environment that truly enhances resilience without causing additional harm.
Dr. Derrick Tin is a disaster medicine consultant at World Travel Protection, a global travel risk management organization. He is also an associate professor of critical care medicine.