Community Engagement Theory: Weaving together emergency management and community development knowledges to reduce disasters and adapt to climate change

Disasters and climate change having increasingly devastating impacts on human and environmental health makes it pertinent to find effective pathways for preventing disasters and increasing our adaptive capabilities and capacities. In this presentation we offer Community Engagement Theory (CET) as one highly potent pathway. CET has been developed and empirically tested over 20 years by research designed and conducted by a researchers and practitioners in various countries led by the late Professor Douglas Paton. CET is utilizing and synergising relevant knowledges from many fields (e.g., disaster research, emergency management, community development), disciplines (e.g., psychology, sociology, anthropology, vulcanology, human geography), relatively high individualistic Western to relatively high collectivistic Asian cultures (Aotearoa New Zealand, Australia, USA, Portugal, Taiwan, Japan, Indonesia, Nepal, Iran), disaster types (bushfires/wildfires, volcano eruption, floods, earthquakes, tsunami, hurricane, tornado, pandemic) and disaster phases (preparedness, response, recovery) to form a comprehensive holistic and process theory that is valid and has utility across hazard and cultures. In this presentation, we will discuss the core components of CET (outcome expectancy, community participation, collective efficacy, empowerment, trust, intention), the expanded set of variables, strategies for developing the CET variables, and cross-hazard and cross-cultural considerations. We will also explore the indicative individual and community measures used in testing the CET, and how CET can be used to facilitate, evaluate and refine community readiness, DRR and adaptation (e.g., community development strategies, education programs). It will become apparent that CET is a universal systems theory that can be used to co-design strategies that increase our capabilities and capacities to reduce diverse disasters and adapt to climate change and these strategies considering and utilizing the specific local and cultural conditions and resources.