[Status of household disaster preparedness and affecting factors among the general public of four counties in Shaanxi].
OBJECTIVE
To investigate the status of household disaster preparedness in 4 counties of Shaanxi province and explore the affecting factors.


METHODS
During the period from September to October in 2008, multi-stage sampling was used to select subjects from urban and rural residents in Xincheng district, Hantai district, Fuping county and Xunyang county of Shaanxi province. Questionnaire survey was conducted among 1945 subjects aged 18-88 years to investigate their experience and expectation of disaster events, preparedness knowledge, activities and emergency supplies. Logistic regression was used to analyze the factors influencing household disaster preparedness.


RESULTS
The average age of the 1945 subjects was (43.55 ± 12.76) years old. A total of 7.12% (138/1939) of respondents never experienced disaster. Earthquake and fire (57.35% (1175/2049), 19.81% (406/2049), respectively) were rated as the two disasters most likely to occur. The awareness rate of knowledge about household disaster preparedness was 51.43% (989/1923), and 23.41% (454/1939) discussed how to prepare for disaster with their family, only 9.27% (179/1932) attended evacuation drill. The rates of preparing household emergency supplies were 23.64% (230/973), 30.56% (55/180), 31.19% (141/452) and 54.49% (97/178) for urban residents, subjects with junior college or above education, subjects having frequent family discussions of disaster preparedness and subjects participating in emergency rescue drills, respectively. For subjects with junior high school, senior high school and junior college or higher education, the likelihood of preparing household emergency supplies was 5.02 (95%CI: 1.12 - 22.42), 5.74 (95%CI: 1.27 - 26.04) and 6.84 (95%CI: 1.44 - 32.39) times as that of illiterate, respectively. Urban residents, subjects who often discussed disaster preparedness with their family, and who participated in emergency rescue drills were more likely to prepare emergency supplies than rural residents (OR = 4.38, 95%CI: 2.74 - 7.00), those who never discussed (OR = 4.99, 95%CI: 2.52 - 9.91), and who didn't participate (OR = 5.72, 95%CI: 3.84 - 8.51).


CONCLUSIONS
The residents in 4 counties of Shaanxi lack comprehensive knowledge and appropriate activities of disaster preparedness, the rate of preparing household emergency supplies is low. Higher education, living in urban area, frequent family discussions of disaster preparedness and participating in emergency rescue drills are facilitating factors of preparing household emergency supplies.
Department of Guidance and Promotion, Chinese Center for Health Education & Health News and Communication Center, Ministry of Health, Beijing 100011, China.
Yan
Y
Ning
Mao-xuan
MX
Tao
Jun-feng
JF
Hu
Yu-bo
YB
Li
Yu-lan
YL
Cheng
Gang
G
Zhang
Tao
T
Hu
Li
L
Li
Yan
Y
Chai
Hai-Tao
HT
Nan
Hong-Qi
HQ
Zhao
Jun-Jie
JJ
Wang
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D004190:Disasters; D004630:Emergencies; D005191:Family Characteristics; D005260:Female; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D055815:Young Adult