Reducing Disaster Impacts: Factors Influencing Preparedness

Disasters are natural, human-made, or technological emergency events which have negative economic and social consequences for the affected population. During the threat of or actual disaster, the general welfare of the public is threatened, warranting intervention to minimize the negative effects of the event. In light of the recent highly publicized disasters, many people are asking why isn’t there more done to prepare for disasters? Spending on disasters is increasing, and experts anticipate that this will continue. Although this prompts more calls to address the distribution of expenditures across levels of government and to control rising overall costs, the public feels a degree of responsibility toward helping those victimized by disaster.

But, with increasing costs, there is an even greater need than ever before for personal accountability for preparedness and mitigation actions, economically speaking. Damage costs after disasters have become a public responsibility to taxpayers being burdened with financing the recovery of the affected population (Baslo, et al. 2009). Currently, the government offers loans and grants to disaster victims.

However, this was not always the case. In 1887, President Grover Cleveland denied an emergency appropriation of government funds to Texas drought victims. He cited that the federal government had no “warrant in the Constitution… to indulge a benevolent and charitable sentiment through the appropriation of public funds… for the relief of individual suffering which is in no manner properly related to the public service” (Barnett 1999). Yet in the years since then, the support for disaster assistance has increased significantly. These government bailouts have produced an ever greater reliance on the government.

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With the government performing as the ultimate insurer through post-event relief, there are fundamental disincentives for voluntary efforts at pre-disaster risk reduction (Gerber 2007). These government programs use taxpayer dollars to assist disaster victims, spreading loss throughout all citizens, while insurance distributes loss across only its customers.

Neither removes risk, but instead, distributes the burden of loss over larger populations. Therefore, current government policy on disaster relief appears to compensate risk takers and penalize risk-averters (Barnett 1999). Without addressing the ridiculousness of the government’s approach to incentivizing the absence of preparedness behaviors, an assessment is needed to determine what most influences behaviors associated with preparing for disasters in order to promote increased preparedness which will potentially reduce disaster response expenditures.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, many people instantly criticized local, state, and federal preparedness efforts; they scolded governments and Congress. The public worried about leaders being better prepared for the next disaster while ignoring the issue of personal preparedness (McGinnis 2005). For the general public, personal preparedness includes the preparation of equipment, procurement of supplies, and procedures that will be needed once disaster strikes.

Individuals and all levels of government have a vested interest in minimizing the costs and impacts of disasters. All are, and if not they should be, closely examining strategies that will reduce the environmental and fiscal impacts of disasters and help individuals and communities recover more quickly. In addition to proven mitigation efforts, any effort to minimize the federal and state disaster funding relationship should be grounded in comprehensive information about local government and individual perceptions and influences that apply to behaviors associated with disaster preparations (Baslo, et al. 2009).

With cost-benefit analyses suggesting that for every $1 invested in disaster mitigation, a savings of $6 will occur, it seems logical to further research and invest in preparedness as the lines between preparedness and mitigation are often blurred (National Institute of Building Sciences Multihazard Mitigation Council 2017). Yet, one must note that this report highlights significant savings from mitigation in terms of safety, property protection, and continuity, but only when communities are struck by waterway flooding, hurricanes, earthquakes, or wildfires. Since assessing and implementing any mitigation program involves a very large number and variety of people, any quantifying of program performance and expected return to become cumbersome if we consult all those involved and affected. Any method used to measure the performance of mitigation program performance should recognize as many impacts as feasible, and include the best data available from as many of those involved as possible.

Benefit cost analysis, and its variants of cost-effectiveness and cost-utility analysis, apply theory-based methods to determine the value of a mitigation program across a wide range of elements of society, from individuals to groups and organizations and governments as well as society as a whole. Even though a number of limitations exist in the method, the basic problem involves trading the desire to “do it right” with the need to make a decision concerning program value being implemented on time and within budget. As individuals, this-time and budget- is often the biggest challenge. The same concepts can be applied to preparedness programs once the optimal conceptual method of promotion is determined.

Of the various factors that may influence disaster preparedness, the impact of disaster experience has probably been the most extensively studied. The results, however, are not necessarily consistent in their implications. Numerous studies have reported significant positive effects on hazard adjustments for earthquakes (Heller, et al. 2005) and floods and/or storms (Osberghaus 2015). On the other hand, other studies have found limited or insignificant effects of disaster experience on preparedness. According to Lindell and Hwang, a possible explanation for the conflicting empirical results on the impact of disaster experience on preparedness is that the effect of hazard experience on hazard adjustment adoption may be mediated by perceived personal risk (Lindell and Hwang 2008). Because mediation involves the product of two causal path coefficients, the results may be sensitive to sampling fluctuations between studies.

Moreover, as suggested by Lindell and Prater, hazard experience has both an indirect effect (via perceived personal risk) and a direct effect on hazard adjustment adoption; thus, the mediation of the effect through the personal perception of risk is partial rather than complete (Lindell and Prater, Household Adoption of Seismic Adjustments: A comparison of research in two states 2000).

In other arenas of research, one question posed various ways, but with the same context is “why, after millions of dollars and years of public campaigns, many Americans are not prepared for disaster. Dragini suggests that perhaps the problem is not just with the receiver of the message, but rather with the message itself. Further analysis is needed to substantiate this claim suggesting that preparedness messaging and campaigns might not be effective if preparedness knowledge and self-efficacy and preparedness beliefs are not addressed. It is further suggested that the focus should be on the outcome rather than actions (Dragini 2015). In part, this coincides with what this current research suggests. By stating that the message should appeal to the individual and how their actions affect them and their family will have a greater outcome than simply telling them what to do. Success is most often achieved by making things personal and therefore preparedness must also be made personally. In the words of Benjamin Franklin, “by failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”

Interestingly, 44% of Americans reported they sometimes feel guilty, they have not done more to prepare for disasters. Nevertheless, 74% have made no effort to put together an emergency kit and 68% of those surveyed stated they do not have a household emergency plan.

In consideration of what would motivate the public to prepare, Wilkinson College suggests that there are four factors that motivate preparedness and lead people to take action, such as making a family emergency plan, according to the Chapman Survey of American Fears:

1. perceived susceptibility
2. perceived severity
3. self-efficacy
4. response efficacy.

To measure the impact of these factors on disaster preparedness, respondents were asked if they believed they “will experience a significant natural or man-made disaster in the near future.” This measured their feelings of susceptibility. To gauge belief about severity, they were asked if, “Natural disasters in my area are capable of doing serious harm to me or my property.” To measure self-efficacy, they asked whether the respondent feels, “…confident that I know how to prepare for disasters.” Finally, response efficacy was assessed by looking at whether they believed that, “By keeping an emergency supply kit, I am improving my chances of surviving a natural or manmade disaster.” Performing logistic regression, researchers found that each of these factors contributed significantly to the likelihood of preparing for disaster by creating an emergency kit and household emergency plan (Wilkinson College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences 2016).

Given the scale of the challenge through current review and research, the goal here is not to provide final answers for how preparedness can be accomplished. As is substantially clear, there are many unanswered questions about how preparedness can be meaningfully measured as well as what impact it will have. Although the goal is to get to good answers, it is important to make sure the right questions are being asked. FEMA recognizes that widespread cultural change is a long-term process, and while the national statistics on basic preparedness actions have remained largely constant, findings documented in Preparedness in America offer valuable insights for adapting education efforts to increase preparedness. Key findings from the research focus on the public’s behaviors, knowledge, and attitudes related to preparing for a range of hazards and should correlate with the findings of this study (FEMA 2014).

Some believe the answers lie in other questions such as are the actions the public is asked to take practical based on barriers, such as income and lifestyle, reasonable based on identified risk, and reflective of personal perception of self and how an individual may choose to act based on the way he or she senses and responds to an incident? (Dragini 2015) Furthermore, socio-demographic characteristics, such as race, class, gender, and ethnicity are shown to directly affect the degree of vulnerability (Gerber 2007) and suggest inclusion into the previously mentioned preparedness profiles (FEMA 2014). The preparedness profiles are implicit to the proposed research yet due to the complexity of the administered survey, they are categorized on a broader scale without any related/documented statistical significance data to review.

Data from several FEMA national household surveys consistently demonstrated that different categories of hazards were perceived to have different risks. Accordingly, 57 percent believed they were at risk for experiencing at least one of these events. This represented a small but steady increase from previous surveys in people’s risk perception of natural disasters, yet researchers attributed it to increased media coverage surrounding several high profile natural disasters that had occurred in the past few years without documented consideration of the increased number of events or increased severity of those events (FEMA 2014). There also should have been a consideration for the location of such events in proximity to those surveyed.

Similar to other research, FEMA also examined perceived efficacy based on the desire to better understand how to motivate the public to take action, it is important to understand whether or not people think they can do anything to prevent or mitigate the effects of a disaster. When asked to rate their confidence in knowing how to respond to different types of disasters, individuals were more confident in their ability to react to natural disasters than to terrorist acts, hazardous materials accidents, or disease outbreaks. The belief that they would be able to “successfully respond to a disaster” seems like an ambiguous classy to determine their confidence since it was simply a yes or no with no definition classify success. For many people, success might mean surviving without loss of life, others it might mean proceeding with limited loss of property, and to others it might simply mean to escape any adverse effects overall.

All of these factors are truly important in understanding what influences the various levels of preparedness. But it still doesn’t explain what is responsible for that initial motivation to pursue preparedness. This can only be described through behavioral characteristics. It is more likely that a behavior or experience has greater impact and thereby influences their motivation, rather than their ability to prepare for disasters. Though current research approaches provide information on many of the key inputs to preparedness and some have made progress toward outcome assessment, they do not make it possible to reasonably identify the motivating factor for preparedness behaviors. Overall, there is a need to highlight the effectiveness of SCT in disaster preparedness research.

Verification that a person’s behavior can be explained by individual and environmental factors rather than just being controlled by external stimuli (i.e., simply being told what to do) is needed. Unlike previous studies that measured motivations of people to prepare for disaster, the proposed study establishes personal and environmental factors that predict actual disaster preparedness behaviors and are critical in the conduct of disaster risk reduction and management efforts ultimately reducing the burden imposed on citizens through disaster response efforts.

This study will use a correlational design with the intent to determine what personal and environmental factor most influences behaviors associated to preparing for disasters

Data will be gathered through surveys administered to individuals that recently experienced effects from Hurricane Michael with relatively recent experiences of this natural disaster. Regression analysis will be used to test the hypotheses.

Measures:

• Disaster preparedness behaviors. Fifteen behaviors will be listed to represent disaster preparedness behaviors. These will include items such as having an emergency kit, having a family communication plan, enrollment is an emergency notification system, and securing property. The score will be calculated by totaling the number of “yes” responses.
• Community disaster preparedness. Participants will be asked to indicate their community’s disaster readiness. The scale will consist of six claims, including statements such as, “My community is prepared for emergency situations.” Responses will be measured using a 5-point Likert scale from strongly agree to strongly disagree.
• Risk perception. This will be measured using a semantic differential scale composed of polar opposite adjectives separated by a 7-point rating scale. Questions will include; perceived risk for flooding (no to high risk), emotions associated with risk (calm to worry), likelihood that risk will affect future generations (no to yes), and perception of whether the risk is increasing or decreasing. The mean score will be calculated and used in the analysis.
• Severity of disaster experience. To measure this variable, participants will be asked if they have experienced the following from a recent disaster: perceived threat to life, injury to self/or household member, property loss, had to be rescued, observed completely destroyed residences, death of a relative, heard of death or injury of someone in the community, and house damage. Responses to the nine statements be yes or no. Scores will be calculated by totaling the number of “yes” answers.

Using IBM SPSS Statistical software (SPSS), data will be subjected to descriptive and correlational analysis. Standard multiple regression analysis will be performed to explore the contribution of all and each of the antecedent variables to the prediction of disaster preparedness behaviors.

This study will investigate the individual and environmental factors that influence disaster preparedness. Based on the research hypothesis, disaster preparedness behavior is predicted by individual (i.e., risk perception and severity of disaster experience) and environmental (i.e., community disaster preparedness) factors, independently. If these hypotheses are supported, it will validate the social cognitive theory, as it relates to personal preparedness, that personal and environmental factors determine an individual’s behavior as applied to disaster preparations.

This information can be used to orient disaster preparedness initiatives and provide a foundation in developing information and promotional campaigns as well as redirect and promote individual preparedness, thereby prompting a domino effect to reduce the cost of emergency response from the local level all the way up to the national level. In order to further identify motivations related to other specific hazards, other areas, especially those that have not experienced the extreme impact of hurricane disasters, should be identified and surveyed to enable group comparisons to enhance the scope of targeted marketing.