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As the Ebola outbreak in West Africa has demonstrated, outbreaks of infectious diseases pose a significant threat to the extractive industry. Extractive companies often operate in emerging infectious disease (EID) ‘hotspots’. The nature of extractive projects in these hotspots causes greater interaction between animals and humans which in turn, is thought to create a greater risk of infectious outbreaks. The Infectious Disease Risk Assessment and Management (IDRAM) initiative supports the extractive industry to better understand, assess and mitigate this risk through fostering partnerships between the industry, public health systems and other relevant stakeholders. During 2014 and 2015, IDRAM field tested planning and audit tools among four leading mining companies in the Katanga province, Democratic Republic of Congo; produced a qualitative study to better understand the industry's perception of EID-related risks; and conducted three desktop outbreak simulation exercises involving industry and other stakeholders. An ongoing economic evaluation study will quantify the economic impact of the Ebola outbreak at the company level. This study will focus on a single large mining company that has continued to operate throughout the epidemic. A literature review exploring past and current collaborative efforts between extractive industries and national health systems related to health emergencies is also being carried out. This will provide strong evidence-based best practice for effective partnership. These activities have highlighted that although the industry recognizes a need for collaborative approaches to managing EID risks, its response remains focused "inside the fence" with an emphasis on limiting contact between humans, wildlife and domestic animals and maintaining hygiene standards. As a result, companies are still vulnerable to disease outbreaks, due to a lack of coordination and engagement with stakeholders "outside the fence". In public health crises such as the recent Ebola outbreak, no single organization has the capacity to deal with global outbreaks on its own. Through future activities, IDRAM will facilitate oil and gas sector's contribution to national preparedness and response capabilities for EIDs and pandemics, thereby contributing to health system strengthening and improving the sustainability and coordination of disease control efforts in countries where the sector is active.

Communities increasingly need tools that can help them assess the environmental risks they face to understand better their capacities in mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery. Environmental resilience (ER) is a crucial feature of community resilience that is not adequately covered in the literature. This paper proposes an inclusive, participatory approach to achieve stakeholder engagement on the definitions, objectives, and indicators for measuring ER at the community level. This study uses a 5-step approach utilising Q-methods to contextualise a resilience index for Environmental Resilience (ER). An initial set of 57 indicators from 13 frameworks from the literature was reduced to 25 by combining the indicators of similar type, format and terminology. A total of 10 participants from two groups (academics and practitioners) took part in the interviews and Q-sort workshops in Malaysia in this study. Both stakeholder groups identified Ecosystem monitoring as one of the most critical indicators to understand ER, closely followed by rapid damage assessments and an effective communication system. The exercise also revealed marked differences between them regarding the importance of fair access to basic needs and services for citizens, a priority for academics, and the value of building green infrastructure, a priority for practitioners, with the most significant difference between the two groups on the importance of measuring the natural defences of a community. The Environmental Resilience Capacity Assessment Tool (ER-CAT), proposed in this paper, can be used by local governments and communities for engagement, discussion and consensus building to select the resilience indicators that are most relevant to them in their contexts.

PurposeDecision-makers, practitioners and community members have a need to assess the disaster resilience of their communities and to understand their own capacities in disaster situations. There is a lack of consensus among researchers as to what resilience means and how it can be measured. This paper proposes a novel technique to achieve consensus among stakeholders on definitions, objectives and indicators for measuring a key dimension of community disaster resilience (CDR), physical infrastructure (PI).Design/methodology/approachThis study uses a five-step approach utilizing Q-methods to contextualize a resilience index for PI. Interviews, focus groups and Q-sorting workshops were conducted to develop a tool that ranked measures according to stakeholder preference. A total of 84 participants took part in the workshops across four countries (United Kingdom, Malaysia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka).FindingsThe initial set of 317 measures was reduced to 128 and divided into the three community capacities of anticipatory, absorptive and restorative. The physical infrastructure capacity assessment tool (PI-CAT) was then finalized to have 38 indicators that were also ranked in order of importance by the participants.Practical implicationsThe PI-CAT can be useful for local governments and communities to measure their own resilience. The tool allows stakeholders to be confident that the metrics being used are ones that are relevant, important and meet their requirements.Originality/valueThe Q-method approach helps stakeholders to develop and use a community capacity assessment tool that is appropriate for their context. The PI-CAT can be used to identify effective investments that will enhance CDR.

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