Factors affecting behaviors that precede evacuation at the onset of a heavy rainstorm in Japan
This article identifies factors that affect peoples' behavior in disaster situations before evacuation. This is of particular importance in building a better understanding of why people often fail to respond quickly to evacuation orders.
The study employed some of the established factors affecting evacuation behavior as predictor variables along with the timing of an evacuation order. A total of 518 participants took part in a 12-item online questionnaire survey that contained a hypothetical disaster scenario. The results of ordinal logistic regression analyses revealed that only risk area residence and disaster preparedness were associated with warning confirmation behavior, while gender, age, disaster preparedness, and risk perception had some associations with family-oriented behavior. These findings imply the possibility that people engage in warning confirmation behavior and family-oriented behavior before evacuation regardless of individual characteristics and the circumstances surrounding them.
Explore further
