BRITE Synergy: Developing and Validating a Framework for Measuring Resilience in Low-Income Housing in the Post-Pandemic World

A range of disasters -- including flood, hurricane, typhons, violent storms, earthquakes, collapsed infrastructure, and pandemic -- pose the greatest threat to the poor and most vulnerable in society as they are more likely to live in homes that are more vulnerable to the impact of these disasters. Reliance on 'hard' engineering and infrastructure solutions alone cannot solve this problem. This Boosting Research Ideas for Transformative and Equitable Advances in Engineering (BRITE) project aims to integrate findings from past research with findings from a series of multi-level stakeholder engagement activities into a framework that integrates the roles of human, social and natural capital in reducing vulnerability and increasing resilience. The aim is to identify viable pathways for improved resilience for particularly vulnerable, low-income housing communities.

The research activities are designed to address resilience to multiple disaster events and types, and to focus characteristics of subgroups within the target population: low-income housing residents. Through a multi-level, stakeholder case study approach that draws lessons from the experiences of vulnerable populations, sources and determinants of resilience will be examined. A sensitivity analysis will be performed to identify plausibility indicators for what is and what is not likely to support the resilience of low-income housing to specific sets of shocks.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.