Disasters are defined as a crisis event in which the demands being placed on a human system, by the event, exceed the systems capacity to respond''.The disaster literature has generally focused at the individual level and fails to take into account the context in which individuals live and where the disaster occurred.Few studies utilize residents within a disaster community to define the factors that are relevant to their disaster experience especially in Australian settings. This book aims to understand disaster communities and what factors indicate a communities resilience. Results indicate the relative importance of self-efficacy to the experience of stress and growth in disasters and that different styles of coping are inextricably linked to each other.Contributions of this study indicate that for emergency management organizations there is no universal method of practice.Local communities need to be understood in terms of their contexts to effectively develop and implement prevention programs and aid resilience. This book will be useful for those in the emergency management field, social scientests and methodologists.

Julie Ann Pooley PhD. Julie Ann holds an Academic position at Edith Cowan University in Perth Western Australia. Research interests include psychology and resilience, disasters, stress and growth. Julie Ann has been teaching in Psychology for 19 years and has won a Australian National Teaching award.