Preparedness: Unpacking and clarifying the concept

TLDR

Crisis studies emphasize proactive strategies, with preparedness as a key yet hard-to-distinguish component of crisis management. The study surveys preparedness literature to clarify its defining attributes. The authors conduct an extensive literature review of preparedness concepts. Preparedness is minimally defined by active, continuous, anticipatory measures, and contextually may also encompass social, planned, non‑structural, or enabling attributes.

Abstract

Crisis studies increasingly focus on developing proactive strategies to minimize the effects of unwanted occurrences and contingencies. Preparedness constitutes a key component of this approach, as many crises are difficult to prevent. However, at the conceptual and practical levels, it remains difficult to distinguish preparedness from other crisis‐related concepts. This study draws on an extensive survey of the preparedness literature with the goal of elucidating its defining attributes. The results show that preparedness can be minimally characterized as measures that are of an active, continuous and anticipatory nature. Contextually definitions, however, may also include social, planned, non‐structural or enabling conceptual attributes.