141 general discussion These studies can also examine whether enhancing transilience affects the extent to which transilience promotes adaptation actions and mental health. 5.4. PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS The research presented in this PhD dissertation holds significant practical implications. Policymakers and practitioners can leverage on our findings that people perceive transilience, and that higher transilience increases the likelihood of adaptation actions and mental health, when developing strategies and policies to deal with adversities like climate change and pandemics. Specifically, incorporating transilience in such processes would imply to move beyond damage control and to also foster opportunities for persisting, adapting flexibly, and changing for the better. One promising approach may be to integrate transilience-focused initiatives within community-based disaster response and preparedness programs (Johnston et al., 2022). In areas prone to natural disasters, such as hurricanes or flooding, transilience principles could be implemented by emphasizing and leveraging on the capacity of individuals and communities to show persistence, adaptability and transformability in response to the risks in their local environment. Such transilience-focused initiatives can complement traditional ‘bouncing back’ approaches focusing on, for example, rebuilding and reinforcing infrastructure, establishing warning systems, and creating evacuation plans. For instance, community members could be trained in specific techniques and resources helping them carry on when they are hit by a flood, develop and try multiple ways to adapt to such threat, and come up with (and aim for) positive changes that can be derived from the process of adaptation to flood risks. Examples of such potential positive changes may include novel, useful knowledge and skills that can be shared with other members and future generations, the development of values that are more in harmony and respect with the surrounding natural environment, or an increase in social cohesion and support within the community, all of which could be derived from engaging together in activities to adapt to the unavoidable risks in the local area. By incorporating transilience principles in disaster preparedness and recovery programs in the face of different adversities, policymakers and practitioners may likely encourage communities to take a wide range of concrete actions for adaptation while also supporting the mental health and overall quality of life of community members. Transilience principles could also be incorporated in campaigns aiming to promote adaptation to large-scale adversities, including climate change risks and future epidemics. For example, in the context of climate change, campaigns aimed at promoting urban greening could make explicit how individuals can persist, adapt flexibly, and positively transform by engaging in such climate-adaptive actions. Such 5
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