Predictors of Female Disaster Preparedness

Background and purpose: More than a billion people have been affected by disasters in in the past decade alone, as they have become more frequent and severe due to the rise in global temperature brought on by climate change (IPCC, 2022). When disaster is either impending or occurs, being prepared means gathering a set of resources and/or developing a strategy that can be implemented. As observed with the COVID-19 pandemic, the concept of pandemic preparation is still relatively new in the United States. Limited evidence exist on female disaster preparedness for disasters caused by climate change and infectious diseases. The purpose of this research was to identify and assess relationships among social vulnerability, personal resilience, and preparedness for a sample of female residents living in the Gulf South, who experienced both climate-related disaster (e.g., hurricanes, severe weather) and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Methods: This study utilizes a cross-sectional design. Data were collected over a 24-month period from an online survey launched the first week of April 2020. The self-administered online survey was distributed through one of the researcher’s personal social media accounts (e.g., Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn) and advertised on the Tulane University School of Social Work’s social media outlets and website for a period of 12 months. The main inclusion criteria for the online survey required participants to be older than 18 years and have direct access to the survey link. The survey focus was on participants’ (a) previous disaster experience, (b) perceived stress (i.e., PSS), (c) current situation as it relates to COVID-19, (d) preparedness measures taken, and (e) personal and household demographics. The online Qualtrics survey took approximately 10 minutes to complete. The sample for this study includes 774 adults who completed the online survey. Data analysis was conducted using SPSS 26.

Results: Binary logistic regression models were conducted to examine factors associated with disaster and pandemic preparedness. Results for the disaster preparedness model indicate that respondents who identified as white, had more education, were in a relationship, children, spoke English as a first language, and had exhibited greater resilience, measured by the CD-RISC 10, reported they were more likely to prepare for a disaster (x² = 95.773, df = 10, p = 0.001). For the pandemic preparedness model, English as a second language and resilience were both statistically significant explanatory variables of pandemic preparedness (x^{2 =} 31.31, df = 11, p = 0.002).

Conclusions and Implications: These findings offer evidence about readiness protective characteristics for females, including connections between resilience and preparedness. Importantly, by boosting people's propensity to prepare for disaster, resilience may operate as a compensating component in aiding adaptation to a disaster. This connection is crucial between readiness and resilience if we are to develop equitable adaptation plans for disasters brought on by climate change. Together, these findings indicate that more support is needed for females to regularly confront injustices affecting individuals affected by disaster. The link between resilience and disaster preparedness has largely been ignored in disaster research, making this study crucial.