Abstract

There are many important factors to consider when creating robust, regional disaster prevention systems. These include rural households’ knowledge and reported skills of earthquake disasters, disaster risk perception, awareness of disaster risk reduction, willingness to purchase insurance, and willingness to relocate to avoid disasters. However, few empirical studies have systematically established the theoretical research frameworks to analyze these factors. This study analyzed the data sampled from 241 rural households located in counties affected by the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake. A theoretical model was designed to investigate rural households’ disaster risk perception and used path analysis to systematically analyze the mechanism of the factors stated above. The results showed that 53.11% of rural households had a stronger willingness to purchase disease insurance and 72.19% had a stronger willingness to relocate to avoid disasters. Risk perception, knowledge and reported skills, and awareness of disaster risk reduction were significantly correlated with a willingness to purchase disaster insurance. Risk perception and awareness of disaster risk reduction were significantly positively correlated with a willingness to relocate to avoid disasters. Knowledge and reported skills indirectly affected the willingness to purchase insurance and the willingness to relocate to avoid disasters through risk perception and awareness of disaster risk reduction. Risk perception could indirectly affect the willingness to purchase insurance and the willingness to relocate to avoid disasters through awareness of disaster risk reduction.

Highlights

  • Earthquakes, landslides, mudslides, and other disasters have seriously threatened the lives and property of Chinese residents [1,2,3,4,5]

  • The overall level of education of the methods in psychological paradigms, this study proposed that disaster risk perception is subjective respondents was low, with 23.2% reported to be illiterate

  • Based on the survey data of rural households located in areas severely affected by the Wenchuan earthquake, a model was created to analyze the characteristics of rural households’ knowledge and reported skills in earthquake disasters, level of disaster risk perception, awareness of disaster risk reduction, and willingness to avoid disasters

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Summary

Introduction

Earthquakes, landslides, mudslides, and other disasters have seriously threatened the lives and property of Chinese residents [1,2,3,4,5]. People living in poverty are often the most vulnerable to the devastating effects of earthquakes [7,8]. It is important to prevent and manage the effects of disasters in advance to help reduce the loss of life and property damage [9,10,11,12]. Many empirical studies have shown that the implementation of disaster insurance and relocation are effective ways to reduce the losses caused by disasters [13,14,15]. Public Health 2019, 16, 4512; doi:10.3390/ijerph16224512 www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph

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