Community and Family Resilience, Strength and Wellbeing: Sociocultural Influences on Cambodian and Laotian Refugee Communities' Responses to Environmental Challenges

Description: Refugee and immigrant communities’ histories and cultural differences present unique vulnerabilities and challenges for achieving community resilience in response to environmental stressors and disasters. This project will engage with Cambodian and Laotian families in coastal Alabama to determine how individual, family, and community-level strengths and vulnerabilities contribute to community health and well-being and how individuals utilize social networks and formal services to respond to stressors. Culturally responsive interventions and strategies for increasing community capacity and resilience will be developed.

Community Resilience Learning Collaborative and Research Network

Description: The project aims to improve resilience and mental health outcomes in six communities in southern Louisiana that are vulnerable to poor health outcomes and the impacts of disasters. By establishing a community-partnered learning collaborative and research network, this project will build the capacity to test and promote practices that can strengthen resilience. The project team will directly engage with communities within Baton Rouge, New Orleans, and coastal southern Louisiana, although the efforts and lessons are likely scalable to other Gulf States and beyond.

Housing Resilience in Greater New Orleans

Description: Although homes provide a first line of defense for individuals against environmental stressors and disasters, little is understood about how housing shapes community resilience. This project plans to examine housing policies and practices that affect household vulnerability to disasters along with the quality and accessibility of related tools and resources that households can use to reduce those vulnerabilities. The project will develop strategies for equitable housing programs, policies, and practices that can strengthen the resilience of communities as a whole. The focus will be on populations most vulnerable to the effects of climate change in the greater New Orleans area, but the information and tools developed are intended to help build household resilience throughout the Gulf region.

Inland from the Coast: A Multi-Scalar Approach to Regional Climate Change Responses

Description: Risks from sea-level rise, land subsidence, and extreme weather are not limited to coastal areas but threaten entire inland-coastal regions. This project takes a multi-scalar, multi-disciplinary approach to river flood modeling, health and well-being research, and applied community design to improve flood recovery and long-term resilience across the greater Baton Rouge inland-coastal region. The team links university researchers with engineers, building and landscape architects, planners, policymakers, and community members to improve understanding of inland-coastal environmental conditions and vulnerabilities, determine indicators of community health and well-being, and develop design and planning best practices for reducing risk and increasing adaptive capacity. While the project is focused on helping the greater Baton Rouge region emerge more resilient from the devastating 2016 floods, the resulting framework will be applicable to inland-coastal regions across the Gulf Coast and beyond.

Cambodian-Laotian community strengths and resilience study conducted in coastal Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, and Louisiana between March 2018 and July 2019

Community Resilience Learning Collaborative and Research Network (C-LEARN): Phase 1

Community Resilience Learning Collaborative and Research Network (C-LEARN): Phase 3

Community Resilience Learning Collaborative and Research Network (C-LEARN): A Comparative Effectiveness Study

Preparedness and Community Resilience in Disaster-Prone Areas: Cross-Sectoral Collaborations in South Louisiana, 2018

Community-Informed Strategies to Address Trauma and Enhance Resilience in Climate-Affected Communities

Community Reflections - Phase One of the Community Resilience Learning Collaborative & Research Network

C-LEARN Project Website

Powerful in Flight: Cambodian and Karen Refugee Narratives of Strength and Resilience

Introduction to the special issue: Resilience and wellbeing in forced migration

Parallel Pasts, Presents, and Futures: Narratives of Cambodian and Karen Refugees in the United States

Disaster Preparedness and Well-Being Among Cambodian– and Laotian–Americans

Cambodian and Laotian Communities in Bayou La Batre: Raise 251.2

The Khmer Medical Translation Project

Changing Geographies of Flood Mitigation Polices: A Case Study of Central, LA

Measuring Individual Community Capacity, Resilience, and Recovery Relative to Population Age in Three Louisiana Coastal Parishes

Floodplain Management: Law and Policy Concerns

Inland from the Coast: A Multi-Scalar Approach to Regional Climate Change Responses

Deep-seeded and Uprooted: Colorblind Resiliency Planning as Gentrification

The Hungry River: Designing a Future for the Amite River’s Former Sand and Gravel Mines

Spring Up! Denham Springs Masterplan

Assessment of Remote Sensing Products and Hydrologic Simulation of the 2016 Louisiana Flood in the Amite River Basin

Increasing Resilience to Current and Future Flooding through the Integration of Hydrologic and Storm Surge Models

Delta Urbanism: Aligning Adaptation with the Protection and Restoration Paradigm in Coastal Louisiana

Regional Resilience: Building adaptive capacity and community wellbeing across Louisiana’s dynamic ­­­coastal-inland continuum