This research was led by Christine Camacho as part of her PhD Fellowship. For more information about Christine, please check our PhD Fellowships page.

 

 

What were we trying to do?

This research set out to develop a Community Resilience Index for England and to understand how resilience varies across local areas. Resilience is widely referenced in policy, but there was no consistent way of measuring it at a population level. The aim of the project was therefore to create a robust, evidence-based index that captures the structural, social, economic, and institutional factors that help communities withstand and adapt to both acute shocks and long-term stressors.

 

 

Why was this important?

Communities across England face substantial and widening inequalities. Economic decline, population loss, health disparities, and reductions in civic and social infrastructure have left some areas more vulnerable to adversity and slower to recover from it. These underlying conditions also contribute to poorer health outcomes.

 

Despite increasing policy interest, particularly following the COVID-19 pandemic and through agendas such as Levelling Up and the UK Government Resilience Framework, there is no agreed method for assessing community resilience. Without a consistent measurement approach, it is difficult to understand where structural support is needed or to evaluate whether policies are reaching the areas most in need.
 

 

 

How did we do it?

The research was undertaken as a multi-stage programme of work:

 

1. A systematic review examined how the Baseline Resilience Indicators for Communities (BRIC) framework has been used internationally. This provided the conceptual and methodological foundation for adapting the approach to England.
2. The Community Resilience Index for England was developed using 44 indicators across multiple domains, guided by the BRIC framework. 
3. The relationship between resilience and place-based funding was explored by analysing resilience across area in England and comparing this with allocations from the UK Government’s Levelling Up Fund.
4. An analysis of Deaths of Despair (suicide, drug-related mortality, and alcohol-related mortality) examined how structural disadvantage and weakening social and economic conditions are reflected in health outcomes. This work helped to shape the understanding of resilience-related determinants in the English context.
5. The index was then applied to assess its association with a set of health outcomes, including chronic disease, COVID-19 related mortality, self-rated health, and Deaths of Despair, to understand whether resilience adds explanatory value beyond deprivation.

 

 

Findings 

 

1. The systematic review showed substantial variation in how the BRIC framework has been applied internationally. While BRIC is the most commonly used approach, studies differed widely in indicator choice, weighting, and validation, with inconsistent methodological quality. This highlighted the need for a more standardised and empirically tested approach when adapting the framework for England. Camacho C, Bower P, Webb RT, Munford L (2023). Measurement of community resilience using the Baseline Resilience Indicator for Communities (BRIC) framework: A systematic review. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction.
2. The development of the Community Resilience Index for England resulted in a composite measure built on 44 indicators across multiple domains. Clear geographical patterns were identified, with higher resilience in London and the South East and lower resilience in many northern, coastal, and post-industrial areas. Local authority scores are available in this interactive webtool. (Camacho C, Webb RT, Bower P, Munford L (2024). Adapting the Baseline Resilience Indicators for Communities (BRIC) Framework for England: Development of a Community Resilience Index. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health)
3. The analysis of Levelling Up funding revealed a mismatch between resilience and funding allocations. Several areas with lower resilience received less funding than would be expected on the basis of structural need, while some areas with higher resilience received proportionally more. This suggests that resilience-based measures could support more equitable allocation decisions. (Camacho C, Webb RT, Bower P, Munford L (2023). Levelling up or widening the gap? An analysis of community renewal fund allocation in English regions using an economic resilience index. Regional Studies, Regional Science. & Camacho C, Webb RT, Bower P, Munford L. (2025) A community resilience-based approach to place-based funding: lessons learned from England's levelling up policy. Contemporary Social Science)
4. The study of Deaths of Despair demonstrated strong associations with long-term socioeconomic decline, labour market instability, and weakened social and civic infrastructure. Rates were highest in areas characterised by entrenched disadvantage, supporting the conceptual link between resilience, structural conditions, and health outcomes. (Camacho C, Webb R.T, Bower P, Munford L (2024). Risk factors for deaths of despair in England: An ecological study of local authority mortality data. Social Science & Medicine.)
5. Applying the Community Resilience Index to health outcomes showed that some domains of resilience, particularly economic and infrastructural factors, were associated with chronic health outcomes and self-rated health. The index added explanatory value beyond deprivation for several outcomes. However, relationships with COVID-19 mortality and excess deaths were weak or inconsistent, indicating that some acute shocks are shaped more by exposure pathways and contextual risks than by underlying resilience. (Camacho C, Bower P, Webb RT, Munford L. (2025) Assessing the relationship between community resilience and health outcomes: an observational local-authority level study in England. Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health)

 

 

Downloadable resources

 

 

 

More information

 

 

Christine Camacho
PhD Fellow & Public Health Consultant
christine.camacho@manchester.ac.uk