Resilience and power

Resilient individuals, communities and cities are those that are able to endure, adapt and generate new ways of functioning in times of adversity, challenge and change. Understanding the processes that promote resilience, as well as those that undermine it, is important in creating the conditions in which people and communities can be supported to thrive. 

Resilience and power

Our research within this topic covers three main areas: resilience; power; and asset-based approaches.

In terms of resilience, we work alongside partners at a community, city and national level to understand resilience challenges, community aspirations and assets and ways forward for utilising these to promote positive adaptation to change.

The imbalance of power is a fundamental cause of health inequalities. Our work aims to increase understanding of the importance of power in shaping social and health inequalities and, importantly, how communities can be supported to have more power. 

The language of ‘assets’ and ‘asset-based approaches’ are now used widely within public health as an increasing emphasis is placed on prevention of poor health and the need to work differently to tackle persistent inequalities. Our work aims to strengthen the evidence base on the processes that underpin these approaches, how asset-based approaches are currently being applied in Scotland in community and service settings, and the types and scale of effects that can be achieved.