Community resilience is used to describe a community's ability to deal with crises or disruptions. The Conjoint Community Resiliency Assessment Measure (CCRAM) was developed in order to attain an integrated, multidimensional instrument for the measurement of community resiliency. The tool was developed using an inductive, exploratory, sequential mixed methods design. The objective of the present study was to portray and evaluate the CCRAM's psychometric features. A large community sample (N = 1,052) were assessed by the CCRAM tool, and the data was subjected to exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. A Five factor model (21 items) was obtained, explaining 67.67 % of the variance. This scale was later reduced to 10-item brief instrument. Both scales showed good internal consistency coefficients (α = .92 and α = .85 respectively), and acceptable fit indices to the data. Seven additional items correspond to information requested by leaders, forming the CCRAM28. The CCRAM has been shown to be an acceptable practical tool for assessing community resilience. Both internal and external validity have been demonstrated, as all factors obtained in the factor analytical process, were tightly linked to previous literature on community resilience. The CCRAM facilitates the estimation of an overall community resiliency score but furthermore, it detects the strength of five important constructs of community function following disaster: Leadership, Collective Efficacy, Preparedness, Place Attachment and Social Trust. Consequently, the CCRAM can serve as an aid for community leaders to assess, monitor, and focus actions to enhance and restore community resilience for crisis situations.

Previous studies have shown that people who develop psychopathology such as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) following stress exposure are characterized by reduced hippocampal (HC) volume and impaired HC functional connectivity with the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC). Nevertheless, the exact interrelationship between reduced HC volume and HC-vmPFC connectivity deficits in the context of stress has yet to be established. Furthermore, it is still not clear whether such neural abnormalities are stress induced or precursors for vulnerability. In this study, we combined measurements of MRI, functional MRI (fMRI), and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) to prospectively study 33 a priori healthy Israeli soldiers both pre- and post-exposure to stress during their military service. Thus, we were able to assess the contributions of structural and functional features of the HC and its connectivity to the onset and progression of maladaptive response to stress (i.e., increased PTSD symptoms post-exposure). We found that soldiers with decreased HC volume following military service (i.e., post-exposure) displayed more PTSD-related symptoms post-exposure as well as reduced HC-vmPFC functional and structural connectivity post-exposure, compared to soldiers with increased HC volume following military service. In contrast, initial smaller HC volume pre-exposure did not have an effect on any of these factors. Our results therefore suggest that reduction in HC volume and connectivity with the vmPFC together mark a maladaptive response to stressful military service. As stress-induced HC volume reductions were previously shown to be reversible, these localized biological markers may carry valuable therapeutic potential.

On September 2013 an attack on the Westgate mall in Kenya led to a four day siege, resulting in 67 fatalities and 175 wounded. During the crisis, Twitter became a crucial channel of communication between the government, emergency responders and the public, facilitating the emergency management of the event. The objectives of this paper are to present the main activities, use patterns and lessons learned from the use of the social media in the crisis. Using TwitterMate, a system developed to collect, store and analyze tweets, the main hashtags generated by the crowd and specific Twitter accounts of individuals, emergency responders and NGOs, were followed throughout the four day siege. A total of 67,849 tweets were collected and analyzed. Four main categories of hashtags were identified: geographical locations, terror attack, social support and organizations. The abundance of Twitter accounts providing official information made it difficult to synchronize and follow the flow of information. Many organizations posted simultaneously, by their manager and by the organization itself. Creating situational awareness was facilitated by information tweeted by the public. Threat assessment was updated through the information posted on social media. Security breaches led to the relay of sensitive data. At times, misinformation was only corrected after two days. Social media offer an accessible, widely available means for a bi-directional flow of information between the public and the authorities. In the crisis, all emergency responders used and leveraged social media networks for communicating both with the public and among themselves. A standard operating procedure should be developed to enable multiple responders to monitor, synchronize and integrate their social media feeds during emergencies. This will lead to better utilization and optimization of social media resources during crises, providing clear guidelines for communications and a hierarchy for dispersing information to the public and among responding organizations.

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The manifestation of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms in two clinical samples in Israel (N = 212) was examined. Individuals suffering ongoing exposure to shelling were compared with subjects exposed to intense periodic exposure. Elevated arousal and avoidance symptoms, but not intrusion were reported in the ongoing exposure group. When compared by age, young participants in the ongoing exposure group had significantly lower PTSD scores, whereas no differences were found between participants among the intense periodic exposure age groups. No gender differences in symptoms were found among participants from intense periodic exposure, whereas in the other ongoing group the difference was in avoidance. Results are discussed in light of past research on exposure to terrorism.

Wildfire disasters are potentially traumatic events which directly and indirectly affect both citizens and first responders. The study of posttraumatic growth is scarcely found in the context of firefighters and only few studies have addressed this construct. In the current study, posttraumatic symptoms and posttraumatic growth were investigated among Israeli firefighters (N = 65), approximately one month after the Carmel Fire Disaster. Eight firefighters (12.3%) were found to be above the cut-off score for probable PTSD, with intrusion symptoms as the most frequent finding compared to avoidance and hyper-arousal symptoms. Posttraumatic growth (PTG) was evident to a small but considerable degree; noticeable changes were found regarding personal strength and appreciation of life. Results also revealed significant linear and quadratic relationships between PTSD and PTG. Results are discussed in light of past research on psychological responses among firefighters and first responders.

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