Table 2 Summary of new terminology
From: An argument against the focus on Community Resilience in Public Health
Endpoint | Something’s resilience is a function of its ability to reach an endpoint having been subject to a stressor (or distorting force) that tends to move it away from that endpoint. |
As-you-were endpoint | The paradigm endpoint is of an as-you-were type; that is, something’s resilience is the extent to which it can revert to the state it was in before being subject to the stressor (as with a rubber ball subject to a blunt force). |
As-you-should-be endpoint | However the term ‘resilience’ is sometimes applied in cases where an as-you-were endpoint would not apply. For example, a child growing up in an abusive family would be deemed resilient if he developed into a well-balanced adult, not if he remained an abused child. Here it seems better to talk of an as-you-should-be endpoint. |
Acute and Chronic stressors | A stressor is acute if its impact is fairly brief: examples include a rubber ball thrown against a wall and a community subject to an earthquake. It is chronic if its impact is long term: examples include a rubber ball stored long term under pressure and a community subject to chronic poverty. |