Evaluation of Community Emergency Management Capability Based on SWOT Analysis—A Case Study
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear Authors,
In line with the proofreading criteria of the publisher, I prepared a review report, which would be as follows:
According my evaluation, the content of the proposed paper meets the objectives set out in the authors guide of the journal.
Using the scientific methods and research approach applied in accordance with the author’s scientific objectives resulted useful scientific achievements.
The strength of the article is that the authors proposed a “community emergency management evaluation model”, when they combined Swot and ANP analyses models. The authors demonstrated the applicability of their proposed methodology through a specific case study. I agree with the scientifically based conclusions listed in Conclusions chapter.
Some minor deficiencies to be corrected:
- I found excellent literature review in the introduction chapter, but the main objectives of the research are not precisely defined at the end of the introduction chapter.
- I would also recommend to highlight what research conclusions can be expected based on the research situation revealed in the literature review.
- The Abbreviations (like SWOT, AHP, CNKI, etc) should be defined the first time when they appeared, starting with abstract.
- It is recommended to correct typos and spelling errors, such as
o so-ciety, in-cidents, be-lieve, etc;
o the use of punctuation marks must be double-checked.
- Complex compound sentences need to be simplified, for example lines 76-81 or 86-91.
- I would recommend adding a few paragraph to the chapter named as “conclusions”, in which the authors should formulate some general proposals for future research related to author’s findings.
The references used in the main chapters are relevant and assist the reader to understand the authors proposals.
The illustrations used are regular.
Based on the above, after miner revision, I suggest publishing the reviewed article.
Minor editing of English language required.
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 1 Comments
Point 1: I found excellent literature review in the introduction chapter, but the main objectives of the research are not precisely defined at the end of the introduction chapter.
Response 1: Thank you for your suggestion. Lines 93-96 and 102-106 restate the main content of this study, mainly by establishing an evaluation index system for community emergency management, and combining SWOT and AHP methods to study the community emergency management capacity of Xi'an City.
Point 2: I would also recommend to highlight what research conclusions can be expected based on the research situation revealed in the literature review.
Response 2: Thank you for your suggestion. In the last paragraph of the introduction, lines 116-121 elaborate on the expected research conclusions, that is, through this study, the role of community resources in responding to public health emergencies can be fully recognized. The community can further clarify the dimensions that should be improved, establish a scientific and effective community emergency management system, and ensure the smooth implementation of emergency work in public health emergencies, This provides a reference basis for the subsequent research on the evaluation index system of community resilience.
Point 3: The Abbreviations (like SWOT, AHP, CNKI, etc) should be defined the first time when they appeared, starting with abstract.
Response 3: Thank you for your suggestion. Words such as SWOT(Strengths、Weaknesses、Opportunities、Threats),AHP(Analytic hierarchy process) and CNKI(China National Knowledge Internet) have been changed and marked with their full names where they first appeared. (2) Methods: This article combines SWOT (Strengths、Weaknesses、Opportunities、Threats) qualitative analysis method and AHP (Analytic hierarchy process) qualitative and quantitative analysis method to explore the current status of community emergency management in Xi'an City. Through China National Knowledge Internet(CNKI),Wanfang and school libraries and other ways and channels, extensive access and collection of relevant research results and literature materials, and combing and analysis.
Point 4: lt is recommended to correct typos and spelling errors, such as o so-ciety, in-cidents, be-lieve,etc;o the use of punctuation marks must be double-checked.
Response 4: Thank you for your suggestion. Corresponding changes have been made to this spelling error in the manuscript.
Point 5: Complex compound sentences need to be simplified, for example lines 76-81 or 86-91.
Response 5: Thank you for your suggestion. These complex sentences have been changed, such as lines 107-113 and 116-121. The SWOT method can be used to study various strategies. For example, it can be applied to Iran's development of rubber dams or inflatable flexible membrane dams to address drought and waterlogging issues . It can also be utilized in the develop-ment of a tourism e-commerce platform for small and medium-sized urban tourism. Additionally, it can be used to assess the sports tourism potential of Mersin Province. Furthermore, it can provide guidelines on improving performance for emergency department nurses and achieving a better balance between personal work and life. The community can further clarify the dimensions that should be improved, establish a scientific and effective community emergency management system, ensure the smooth implementation of emergency work for sudden public health incidents, and provide a reference basis for subsequent research on the community resilience evalua-tion index system. Secondly, it can assist the government in addressing issues related to emergency response in the field of public health emergencies
Point 6: I would recommend adding a few paragraph to the chapter named as “conclusions”, in which the authors should formulate some general proposals for future research related toauthor's findings.
Response 6: Thank you for your suggestion. In the conclusion part, the future outlook has been put forward, that is: therefore, in the future research, we can use the indicator system of this study for reference to improve and optimize it. In the future research, we can select multiple more representative communities. Through Case study and cross regional comparison methods, we can deeply explore the key elements, effective strategies and successful experience of community emergency management capability. Based on the results of this research, In the following research, we can focus on exploring the dimensions of risk and hazard governance and community organizational resilience, transforming them into the strengths of the community as much as possible. We can further focus on the application of technology in emergency management, deepen our understanding of community emergency management capabilities, and propose more comprehensive and effective research results.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear, authors
Your paper successfully evaluates the Community Emergency Management in Xi' An. It combines a SWOT and an AHP analysis. The work is consistent, articulating six clear and dimensions to carry out such an evaluation. Perhaps a little more weight of the socio-cultural dimension is missing, but we do not consider that this is an issue that the authors need to dwell on to improve their paper.
We believe the paper can be published with minor revision. The areas for improvement are the following:
1. Rewrite the introduction giving it a more narrative format.
2. Throughout the text there are several words separated by hyphens with no apparent meaning. Please, we ask the authors to modify these words scattered throughout the text.
I do not finish my evaluation without give congratulations to the authors for their work
Kind regards
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 2 Comments
Point 1: Rewrite the introduction giving it a more narrative format.
Response 1: Thank you for your suggestion. The introduction section has been modified to make it more narrative. Once a sudden public health event occurs, it will have a profound impact on so-ciety, often lasting for a period of time. As the basic unit of a city, communities are the direct attack areas of sudden public health events. In sudden public health emergencies, community management has certain advantages. The community is the unit where residents have the most frequent and extensive contact, and it has mastered various basic information of residents . To avoid the occurrence of sudden public health incidents, it is necessary to start from community management, improve community resilience, take scientific and effective preventive measures in a timely manner, and maximize control or reduction of losse.
Resilience first appeared in the fields of psychology, ecology, and engineering, and with the continuous development of societ, it subsequently emerged in the field of sociological research. Walker et al. believe that resilience is the ability of a system to absorb interference and restructure while undergoing changes, thereby maintaining essentially the same functions, structures, identities, and feedback. Cohen et al. be-lieve that resilience is a fundamental element of emergency preparedness. Through research, six factors that affect resilience have been identified. The resilience of urban community emergency management emphasizes the subjective initiative of disaster prevention and reduction, mainly through the preparation of community emergency management plans to improve the level of community system resistance to disasters, and to play the role of the "first responder" of the community. For example, in the event of a flood, an emergency plan should be initiated to resist the flood and rescue the victims, based on feedback, the emergency response system and mechanism are ad-justed and optimized to shorten the recovery and reconstruction time, strengthen the post disaster recovery and reconstruction ability, and enhance the overall resilience of the community .
Scholars are increasingly delving into the study of resilience evaluation indicators for community emergency management capabilities. Ostadtaghizadeh et al. have established community resilience evaluation indicators consisting of six fields: society, management, economy, culture, physics, and environment. Kusumastuti et al. es-tablished an evaluation system within the framework of social, economic, community capacity, community system, and infrastructure to reduce losses in natural disaster areas in Indonesia. Based on the evaluation results, they further improved their disas-ter prevention and reduction capabilities; Parsons et al. believe that when de-signing an assessment of community emergency management capabilities, seven common at-tributes should be considered, such as the purpose, scale, method, frame-work, data analysis, calculation methods, and reporting results of the assessment; Scholars such as Peacock have studied the measures involved in the entire process of community response to sudden public events, and analyzed the relationship be-tween social, eco-nomic, material, and human capital required for these measures. They have constructed a community disaster resilience framework based on commu-nity capital; Norris et al. pointed out that the four abilities of community economic level, social capital, information communication and transmission ability, and com-munity capacity jointly promote community resilience construction；The study by Alonge et al. indicates that strong leadership skills in communities, close connec-tions and kinship between superiors and subordinates, reliable communication chan-nels, and trust among various health systems are key factors affecting public health emergencies. According to literature research, it can be found that the evaluation in-dicators for community emergency management capabilities are mainly formulated from the aspects of community, economy, infrastructure, organizational measures, etc.
In terms of improving emergency management capabilities, Li et al. believed through comprehensive analysis that in the future, communities should, under the leadership and support of the government, enhance emergency capabilities from four aspects: human, material, financial, and emergency forces. Hope et al. through five Case study, found that the improvement of community emergency response ca-pacity can be achieved by tapping potential capabilities, and realized the importance of jointly developing relevant education and communication strategies, expanding the role of community leaders, enhancing the ability of community members to achieve common goals, and planning and preparing for future emergencies in advance. Rob-ertson believes through research that after an emergency occurs, emphasis should be placed on connecting residents, emergency managers, organizers, community leaders, and government officials. Key infrastructure departments are interdependent in order to protect community safety.
In China, the community emergency management system is only limited to simple emergency plans implemented by the local government, lacking drills and optimiza-tion of details. The emergency training of community management personnel is also inadequate, and the governance mode and concept of community public health emergencies are still limited to theoretical research. However, this article attempts to establish a community emergency management evaluation index system to study the community emergency management capacity of Xi'an City, China, and propose cor-responding improvement measures to further reduce the losses caused by public health emergencies.
Based on the above analysis, we will use a combination of SWOT and AHP anal-ysis method. SWOT method is a commonly used quantitative analysis method for formulating development strategies, but its drawbacks are also quite prominent. It lacks the process of quantitative analysis and is combined with AHP method to sys-tematically solve complex multi factor problems through a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods, which is both practical and efficient. Based on the experts' ratings of the five indicators, the weights of the indicators are calculated using the AHP method to evaluate the community's emergency management ability. Then, based on the weights of the indicators, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats are di-vided, and community response strategies are analyzed accordingly.
The SWOT method can be used to study various strategies. For example, it can be applied to Iran's development of rubber dams or inflatable flexible membrane dams to address drought and waterlogging issue. It can also be utilized in the develop-ment of a tourism e-commerce platform for small and medium-sized urban tourism. Additionally, it can be used to assess the sports tourism potential of Mersin Province. Furthermore, it can provide guidelines on improving performance for emergency department nurses and achieving a better balance between personal work and life .
Through the study of the emergency management capacity of communities in Xi'an City in this article, the role of community resources in responding to sudden public health incidents can be fully recognized. The community can further clarify the dimensions that should be improved, establish a scientific and effective community emergency management system, ensure the smooth implementation of emergency work for sudden public health incidents, and provide a reference basis for subsequent research on the community resilience evaluation index system. Secondly, it can assist the government in addressing issues related to emergency response in the field of public health emergencies.
Point 2: Throughout the text there are several words separated by hyphens with no apparent meaning. Please, we ask the authors to modify these words scattered throughout the text.
Response 2: Thank you for your suggestion. The author has made corresponding modifications to these erroneous words scattered throughout the entire text.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
LINE NO.
48 - Based on feedback, it would help to give example.
100 - It would be good to explain more about the flow chart in as a better introduction.
101 - include separate introductions and summaries for all Figures throughout the paper.
119 - Analytic hierarchy process (AHP)...
135 - Provide a little more information for the introduction of all tables about what will be illustrated, and provide summaries explaining in more detail of what each table throughout paper illustrates.. Encourages readers to exmine tables more.
155 - Should the title include and or in instead of an?
References:
For multiple authors, use first and//or middle initials with last names.
Separate last two authors where there with an ampersand (&).
Include period after first and second initials.
Some article titles from journals are presented in lower case and some words are capitalized in others, need to be consistent, e.g., lower case except first word is capitalized.
Some articles have initial before last name. Again, be consistent with last name the initials.
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 3 Comments
Point 1: 48 - Based on feedback, it would help to give example.
Response 1: Thank you for your suggestion. This issue is resolved on line 49, which is for example, in the event of a flood, an emergency plan should be initiated to resist the flood and rescue the victims, based on feedback, the emergency response system and mechanism are adjusted and optimized to shorten the recovery and reconstruction time, strengthen the post disaster recovery and reconstruction ability, and enhance the overall resilience of the community.
Point 2: 100 - It would be good to explain more about the flow chart in as a better introduction.
Response 2: Thank you for your suggestion. What you mentioned is the first flowchart, and the rectangular box behind the same color scheme provides a detailed introduction to the previous process. Explaining it in the diagram will help readers have a clearer understanding of the process of determining the indicator system.
Point 3: 101 - include separate introductions and summaries for all Figures throughout the paper.
Response 3: Thank you for your suggestion. We have added an introduction to the images in the entire text.Such as: As shown in Figure 1, there are four main steps in developing an indicator system. The rectangular box at the back provides a specific explanation of the four steps, and Figure 2 shows the community emergency management indicator system specified through the four steps. According to the SWOT analysis method, the specific analysis results of the Xi'an community are shown in Figure 3. The strategic quadrilateral of the Xi'an community is shown in Figure 4.
Point 4: 119 - Analytic hierarchy process (AHP).
Response 4: Thank you for your suggestion. Modifications have been made here: Analytic hierarchy process (AHP) is a multi-index comprehensive evaluation method proposed by Sati, an American operations research scientist, in 1982.
Point 5: 135 - Provide a little more information for the introduction of all tables about what will beillustrated, and provide summaries explaining in more detail of what each table throughout paper illustrates. Encourages readers to exmine tables more.
Response 5: Thank you for your suggestion. We have provided more information for the introduction of all tables. Such as: Invite experts to compare the three-level indicators in pairs using the 1-9 scale method, where 9 different numbers represent the importance of the two indicators. Based on this, establish a judgment matrix. The specific meaning of the 1-9 scale method is shown in Table 1. The evaluation results of infrastructure resilience based on the scores of 25 indi-cators given by various experts are shown in Table 2.
Point 6: 155 - Should the title include and or in instead of an?
Response 6: Thank you for your suggestion. The Xi'an in line 155 you proposed is a Chinese city name, which serves as an example for analyzing the city.
Point 7: References:For multiple authors. use first and//or middle initials with last names.
Separate last two authors where there with an ampersand (&).
Include period after first and second initials.
Some article titles from journals are presented in lower case and some words are capitalized inothers, need to be consistent, e.g., lower case except first word is capitalized.
Some articles have initial before last name. Again, be consistent with last name the initials.
Response 7: Thank you for your suggestion. Based on the relevant issues raised by you regarding the references, they have been revised.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
Dear authors, your paper ,,Evaluation of Community Emergency Management Capability Based on SWOT Analysis – A Case Study" is very interesting research. I would suggest you some improvements:
1. Introduction part - I will suggest you add a separate part with a literary review and put additional references regarding your research;
2. I would suggest you to better describe the study area;
3. Please, add a discussion part;
4. Try to improve the conclusion part with some elaboration regarding the scientific and social implications of your research;
Thank you for this interesting research.
Kind regards
Minor editing of English language required
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 4 Report
Dear authors,
thank you for your improvements.
Kind regards
Author Response
Please see the attachment. Thank you for your review!
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
