Next steps: Operationalizing resilience research

The National Institutes of Health have recently gathered internal and external input towards a shared understanding of resilience in the wide context of human health and the biomedical sciences that would help accelerate advances in human health and its maintenance. We suggest the current view that resilience refers in general to a system's capacity to recover, grow, adapt, or resist perturbation from a challenge or stressor. To help harmonize the design and reporting of resilience research studies across multiple domains we have developed and are proposing a Resilience Research Design (ResD) Tool. Researchers can use the Resilience ResD Tool to proceed through a flowchart of six questions that will guide identification of key features in a resilience research study. Through this special supplement, we have shown the application of the Resilience ResD Tool and suggest opportunities and gaps with respect to next steps towards operationalizing resilience research.

Automated summary

The National Institutes of Health have gathered input to understand resilience in human health and biomedical sciences. They propose that resilience refers to a system's ability to recover, adapt, or resist stressors. They have developed a Resilience Research Design (ResD) Tool to guide researchers in identifying key features in resilience research.