Redefining Resilience: Advancing Public Health through Individual, Family, and Community Adaptation in A Changing World

Resilience research within public health explores how individuals, families, and communities withstand, adapt to, and recover from adversity. In an era marked by ecological disasters, economic volatility, pandemics, and increasing social inequities, understanding resilience as a multifaceted, systemic process has never been more crucial. While significant insights have emerged across psychological, social, and ecological domains, questions remain about the mechanisms that foster resilience and the complex interplay between individual, familial, and community factors. Recent studies have advanced our knowledge regarding resilience-building, yet gaps persist in linking these insights to health equity and the ability of health systems to respond to ongoing crises. Systems theory is now being leveraged to better understand how resilience functions across multiple levels—offering a more integrative approach that underscores the necessity for interdisciplinary research and practical implementation.

This Research Topic aims to provide a comprehensive platform for advancing our understanding of resilience as a dynamic and evolving construct in public health. The main objective is to critically appraise and synthesize the latest empirical and theoretical developments in the science of resilience. Focused on individual, familial, and community perspectives, this Research Topic encourages exploration of how resilience is developed, maintained, and transmitted throughout the lifespan and across diverse settings. Specific goals include identifying determinants of resilience, evaluating interventions and policies, and fostering cross-disciplinary dialogue to address how global challenges such as pandemics and socio-economic disparities shape and are shaped by resilience.

The boundaries of this Research Topic encompass research and scholarship that focus on resilience within and across individual, family, and community systems, from a public health perspective. It prioritizes contributions that address resilience as both an outcome and a process, highlighting implications for theory, intervention, and policy. To gather further insights into the multifaceted dimensions of resilience, we welcome articles addressing, but not limited to, the following themes:

• Trauma and resilience from psychological, biological, and social perspectives
• Resilience in vulnerable and marginalized populations
• The intersections of trauma, resilience, and physical or mental health outcomes
• Positive psychology and resilience-promoting interventions
• Resilience across the lifespan and in different developmental stages
• Community-level resilience in response to disasters and crises
• Intergenerational transmission of protective factors
• Resilience and adaptation to climate change
• Socio-economic burdens associated with limited resilience capacities
• Lived experiences of resilience and recovery