Rocks, Dandelions or Steel Springs: Understanding Resilience from a Public Health Perspective

The multifaceted concept of resilience is widely used to describe individual or societal abilities to withstand and adjust to external pressures. In relation to health, resilience can help us to understand a positive health development despite adverse circumstances. The authors of this article aimed...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:International journal of environmental research and public health 2021-08, Vol.18 (15), p.8189
Main Authors: Gauffin, Karl, Jackisch, Josephine, Almquist, Ylva B
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
childhood adversity
Epidemiology
External pressure
Health sciences
Humans
Longitudinal studies
Medical research
Metaphor
metaphors
Personality
Public Health
Resilience
Resilience, Psychological
Rocks
Steel
Taraxacum
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Summary:The multifaceted concept of resilience is widely used to describe individual or societal abilities to withstand and adjust to external pressures. In relation to health, resilience can help us to understand a positive health development despite adverse circumstances. The authors of this article aimed to disentangle this complex concept by elaborating on three metaphors commonly used to describe resilience. Similarities and differences between resilience as a rock, a dandelion, and a steel spring are discussed. The metaphors partly overlap but still provide slightly different perspectives on the development and manifestation of resilience. With reference to longitudinal studies of long-term health development, the article also elaborates on how resilience relates to temporal dimensions commonly used in epidemiological studies: age, cohort, and period. Moreover, the interaction between resilience at individual, organizational, and societal levels is discussed. In conclusion, it is argued that public health sciences have great potential to further a theoretical discussion that improves our understanding of resilience and promotes the integration of individual- and community-level perspectives on resilience.
ISSN:1660-4601
1661-7827
1660-4601
DOI:10.3390/ijerph18158189