The dynamic socioeconomic and environmental context of the Gulf presents challenges to the well-being of communities, including both acute stressors from oil spills and natural disasters and chronic stressors stemming from persistent environmental degradation or high levels of disease, and inequity across the region. The capacity to adapt and thrive in the face of such stressors is one essential ingredient in achieving positive human health and well-being outcomes.

Over the next five years, this program will focus on building community resilience and advancing our understanding of how resilience may increase health and well-being, with the following specific goals and objectives:

Goal 3.0. Improve health and well-being by strengthening community resilience and measuring outcomes in the Gulf of Mexico region.

• Objective 3.1: Identify community health and resilience goals and indicators for Gulf communities through partnership and provision of technical support.
• Objective 3.2: Work with communities to measure and track their resilience and health progress and outcomes.
• Objective 3.3: Generate new understanding of long-term trends around Gulf community health and community resilience.

The GRP may support these types of activities to fulfill these objectives:

• Produce quality reports that document trends in health, well-being, and community resilience in the Gulf region.
• Work at the community level to provide technical and scientific support as communities identify and work towards their health and resilience goals.
• Work with communities to synthesize existing or collect new data and information to assess their progress towards health and resilience goals.
• Identify key questions about health and community resilience in the Gulf region that require longitudinal data to be addressed.