Modeling household adoption of earthquake hazard adjustments: a longitudinal panel study of Southern California and Western Washington residents
Year: 2006
Type: dissertation
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: This research, aimed at advancing the theory of environmental hazard adjustment processes\nby contrasting households from three cities in a high seismic hazard area with households from\nthree other cities in a moderate seismic hazard area. It identified seven types of stakeholders\nnamely, the risk area residents and their families (primary group), the news media, employers,\nand friends (secondary group), and federal, state, and local governments (tertiary group), and\nexplained why they are relevant to the adoption of seismic hazard adjustments. It also addressed\nthree key attributes— knowledge, trustworthiness, and responsibility for protection—ascribed to\nthese multiple stakeholders and the relationships of these stakeholder attributes with risk\nperception, hazard intrusiveness, hazard experience, gender, resource adequacy, fatalism and\nhazard adjustment adoption. It was specifically concerned with the effects of nested interactions\ndue to trust and power differentials among the seven stakeholders, with the self reported\nadoption of 16 earthquake protective measures at two points in time (1997 and 1999).\nSome of the key findings indicate that risk perception, gender, fatalism, city activity in\nearthquake management and demographic characteristics did not significantly predict hazard\nadjustment adoption. However, all stakeholder characteristics had significant positive correlations with risk perception and hazard adjustment, implying a peripheral route for social\ninfluence. Hazard intrusiveness, hazard experience, and stakeholder knowledge, trustworthiness,\nand responsibility affected the increased adoption of hazard adjustments by households.\nParticularly important are the peer groups’ (employers, friends and family) knowledge,\ntrustworthiness and responsibility.\nThese findings suggest, hazard managers cannot count only on the federal, state, and\nlocal government advisories put out through the news media to affect community decisions and\nthereby households’ decisions to take protective actions. Instead, hazard managers need to shift\nfocus and work through peer group networks such as service organizations, industry groups,\ntrade unions, neighborhood organizations, community emergency response teams, faith-based\norganizations, and educational institutions to increase the knowledge, trustworthiness and\nresponsibility of all in the peer group. This will assure higher household hazard adjustment\nadoption levels, thus facilitating a reduction in post disaster losses and recovery time.
Author: Sudha Arlikatti
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2295716351