Community Risk Assessments

Community Risk Assessment: What is it and Why should you care?

A Community Risk Assessment (CRA) is a process of identifying, analyzing, and evaluating potential hazards and weaknesses in your community. It's about understanding the threats that could impact residents, infrastructure, and the environment. Once the threats are understood, it is about determining the likelihood and consequences of those threats. In addition, a CRA can help find areas where residents are vulnerable and target interventions in those areas.

Key Components of a CRA

• Hazard Identification: Pinpointing potential dangers, including natural disasters (floods, wildfires, earthquakes), technological hazards (chemical spills, infrastructure failures), and human-caused threats (crime, terrorism).
• Vulnerability Analysis: Assessing how prone the community is to these hazards and personal risks. This includes looking at factors like demographics, building stock, economic conditions, and social supports.
• Risk Analysis: Assessing the chance of occurrence and impact of each identified hazard. This involves estimating the severity of potential losses (lives, property, economic damage).
• Capacity Assessment: Determining your community's resources and ability to lessen, prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters. This includes looking at the effectiveness of your existing response systems.

Why is a Community Risk Assessment Important?

A CRA is crucial for building a safer and more resilient community. It provides the foundation for:

• Informed Decisions: CRAs enable local governments, businesses, and residents to make data informed decisions about risk reduction and preparedness.
• Effective Resource Allocation: By putting risks in order of priority, communities can allot resources efficiently to address the most pressing needs.
• Targeted Prevention and Mitigation: CRAs help identify specific measures to reduce the likelihood and impact of disasters, such as building codes, early warning systems, and public education campaigns.
• Improved Emergency Response: Understanding potential hazards and weaknesses allows for the development of effective emergency response plans and procedures.
• Enhanced Community Resilience: By fostering a culture of preparedness, CRAs empower communities to bounce back quickly from negative events.
• Increased Public Awareness: A well-performed and well-published CRA helps the public understand the risks that they face, and how they can best prepare themselves and support first responders.
• Grants and Accreditation: Many grant and accreditation programs require a current CRA to be eligible for participation.

In essence, a CRA is a proactive approach to community safety. It shifts the focus from reacting to disasters to anticipating and mitigating them, creating a more secure and sustainable future for all.

Our team of Community Risk Reduction (CRR) specialists can provide support during the CRA process. We can help your agency gather relevant data. This includes demographic information, hazard maps, and historical incident reports. We offer guidance on using established methods and best practices for conducting a thorough and accurate risk assessment.

Once your CRA is complete, we can guide your next steps. We can:

• help with stakeholder meetings
• help develop clear and actionable risk reduction plans
• help your agency better understand and address the unique risks facing your community.

Contact CRR Staff

• Southeast Region: Melissa Neff
  • Email: Melissa.Neff@state.co.us
  • Phone: 720-916-0491
• Southwest Region: Bryce Jenkin
  • Email: Bryce.Jenkin@state.co.us
  • Phone: 720-916-0461
• North Region: Kim Spuhler
  • Email: Kim.Spuhler@state.co.us
  • Phone: 720-916-0367