With the increasing frequency of all kinds of natural disasters, strengthening the resilience and disaster prevention capacity of communities, and improving residents' preparedness for disasters, have gradually become effective means of dealing with disaster risks and improving residents' well-being. However, few studies have explored the correlation between community resilience and disaster preparedness. This study uses survey data from 327 households in four districts and counties affected by the Wenchuan earthquake and the Lushan County, Sichuan earthquake in Sichuan Province, China. The study deeply analyzed the characteristics of community resilience and residents' disaster preparedness. We constructed a Tobit regression model to explore the correlations between community resilience and residents' disaster preparedness. The results show that (1) the community resilience and disaster prevention capability reached the general level of disaster risk reduction paradigm, and the overall disaster preparedness of residents was moderate. (2) The higher the score of community connection care, the better the residents' knowledge and skills preparation and overall disaster preparedness. The higher the score of community resource endowment, the weaker the residents' emergency preparedness. The higher the score of community change potential, the stronger the residents' emergency preparedness. The higher the score of community disaster management, the stronger the residents' emergency preparedness, knowledge and skills preparation, and overall preparedness. The higher the community information communication score, the weaker the knowledge and skills preparation of residents. This study deepens the understanding of the relationship between community resilience and residents’ disaster preparedness. Furthermore, it provides information for the establishment of resilient disaster prevention systems in communities threatened by disasters and for the formulation of policies to improve residents' ability to avoid disasters.

Community resilience and resident's disaster preparedness: evidence from China's earthquake-stricken areas

How would citizens react to official advice in a nuclear emergency? Insights from research in three European countries

In this paper, we examine reasons why take-up rates for earthquake insurance are significantly higher in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia than in western Washington state even though earthquake risk is largely the same. Achieving and maintaining high insurance take-up rates for catastrophic events matters because this can play an important role in improving the resiliency of communities. After exploring several factors known to influence the supply and demand of insurance for high-severity but low-frequency events, we find only two key differences: 1) disaster assistance is more readily available in the U.S.; and 2) Canadians are more willing to purchase earthquake insurance when they are told they should. We conjecture that many policy options to increase insurance take-up rates, such as product redesign or cross subsidization, are not likely to be effective in Washington. Making insurance mandatory—either via legislation, making earthquake coverage a prerequisite for a mortgage or embedding it into property taxes—might be the only viable way to increase take-up rates, although these options may be politically difficult to enact.

The Earthquake Insurance Protection Gap: A Tale of Two Countries

Though significant research exists on earthquake hazard adjustment adoption more generally, research focused on how information seeking influences planned or actual preparedness behavior is rare, limiting our understanding of how information seeking translates into preparedness. To address this gap, our study tests a proposed model of household seismic hazard adjustment using questionnaire responses of roughly 400 households living in the Portland, OR metropolitan region. The proposed model includes components of the Protective Action Decision Model (PADM) with specific emphasis on past information seeking behavior, preparedness behavior, intentions to seek information, and intentions to take protective action. Other components include risk perception, earthquake experience, affective response, seismic risk zone residency, and demographics. Consistent with previous research, this study finds information seeking behavior to be the strongest influence on preparedness with other important influences being risk perception, affective response, and intentions to prepare. We find weak ties between risk zone residency and earthquake risk perception, though this may be because our sample has little experience with earthquakes and the majority live in the same earthquake risk zones. Importantly, longitudinal studies are needed to determine whether information seeking and intentions to prepare eventually result in household protective action.

Residents’ information seeking behavior and protective action for earthquake hazards in The Portland Oregon Metropolitan Area

Worldwide studies show that gender is an important variable affecting disaster risk perception and that women have high levels of disaster risk perception. The objective of this study is to investigate women’s earthquake risk perception as well as the factors that may help predict it. The data of the study were collected from 463 women living in Kocaeli (Turkey) by survey method. The study, which employed ordinary logistic regression analysis, analysed whether the same dependent variable was predicted by different independent variables in five models. Many of the women who participated in the research reported that they were more sensitive to earthquakes. The items with the highest mean among women's affective and cognitive risk perception factors are the items that measure fear and financial perception, respectively. Education and age significantly help predict women’s earthquake risk perception. Living in dread of earthquakes and being depressed and worried for future generations make women feel more sensitive. This study has showed that all the underlying factors affecting women's disaster risk perception should be understood more deeply. It is thought that the results of the study will contribute to studies related to disaster management, risk perception, and women.

Lan Xue

Papers

Does non‐destructive earthquake experience affect risk perception and motivate preparedness?