Research Profile - The Little Town That Could
Resilient Communities Mean Healthy People
Dr. Judith Kulig
When the small community of Hardisty in central Alberta opposed a huge pork feedlot operation proposed by the Taiwanese Sugar Corporation, few onlookers thought the town would win the fight. But when community members banded together, raised $120,000 to finance their legal battle against the feedlot and won in court, other communities sat up and took notice.
So did Dr. Judith Kulig, a University of Lethbridge professor who studies why some communities survive when others don't – and what makes a community resilient. The concept is important, she believes, because living in a healthy community is a social determinant of individuals' health.
At a Glance
Who: Dr. Judith Kulig, Professor and University Scholar, University of Lethbridge.
Issue: Small communities vary in terms of their health and resiliency. The way of life in many communities changes as schools and other services are shut down and resource industries boom and bust.
Approach: At the University of Lethbridge, Dr. Kulig and her team studied three Alberta communities – one urban, two rural – and assessed them according to their resiliency. They surveyed community residents about their health, and then examined existing databases of health measures, comparing that to the communities' resiliency ratings. They found that people who are attached to resilient communities report better health than those who do not feel a sense of belonging.
Impact: Dr. Kulig and her team hope their findings will influence public policy, so that decision makers will understand the health impacts of supporting community health rather than making decisions that undermine resiliency.
“Resiliency is the ability of a community to not only deal with adversity but to develop a higher level of functioning after that experience,” says Dr. Kulig, a former public health nurse and CIHR-supported researcher. “If people have a community that is well-functioning, with proactive leadership, where people get along and share a vision, they can deal with stressors that are coming toward them.”
Dr. Kulig and her colleagues studied three communities that faced different kinds of stress. In the case of Hardisty, it was the prospect of a feedlot that residents feared could adversely affect their health and their community's sustainability.
Riverside Meadows, a neighbourhood in Red Deer, suffered from the effects of being branded as the "bad" part of town. Residents in the area experienced higher than average rates of depression and other mental health issues.
Hinton, a resource-dependent town, was threatened by loss of revenue from mine closures and cutbacks in forestry operations. Residents there also reported high rates of asthma.
When Dr. Kulig assessed all three communities based on her resiliency scale, she found that Hardisty – the area that banded together to fight the feedlot – was the most resilient. It was also the most agricultural of the three communities, home to families who had lived there for generations, worshipping at the same churches, shopping at the same stores, and sharing similar values.
Both Hinton and Riverside Meadows are more transient communities, where people come and go, and forge fewer attachments. That lack of attachment affects people's health, she says.
"We know that when people have a sense of belonging, they rate their health higher," she says. "You want people to be attached to a community, because you want them to experience better health."
Dr. Kulig believes her research demonstrates the importance of public policies that enhance community resilience.
"It seems like common sense, but the reality is that many policies, particularly for rural areas, actually go against those kinds of things," she says.
For example, when governments at all levels close schools, post offices or community centres, people lose their natural gathering places. That makes it difficult to build a sense of belonging, and tough to gather people together to work for a common objective.
"Over the years, in all the interviews I've done, people will say, 'I don't know what community I belong to anymore, because my kids go to this community for school, I go to that community to get my mail, and that one to get my groceries, and this one to curl.'" says Dr. Kulig.
She wants policy and decision makers to understand that eliminating natural gathering places for rural residents actually rips the social fabric of communities – the same fabric that helps keep people healthy.
Dr. Kulig's interest in community resiliency stems from her childhood in the small coal-mining town of Coleman in the Municipality of Crowsnest Pass in southern Alberta. The area's history includes a mountain slide, mining disasters, a wildfire and economic busts based on the disappearance of natural resources. Yet the community survives, thanks to strong local leadership and a common sense of attachment.
"It's still a place that will continue to deal with what it has to deal with," she says.
Ultimately, Dr. Kulig hopes her work will help other rural communities forge that same ability to not only survive, but flourish.
"We know that when people have a sense of belonging, they rate their health higher."
– Dr. Judith Kulig, University of Lethbridge
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