School of Psychology, University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, Western Australia, 6009, Australia.
Risk Anal. 2013 Oct;33(10):1829-43. doi: 10.1111/risa.12037. Epub 2013 Mar 28.
People who live in wildfire-prone communities tend to form their own hazard-related expectations, which may influence their willingness to prepare for a fire. Past research has already identified two important expectancy-based factors associated with people's intentions to prepare for a natural hazard: Perceived risk (i.e., perceived threat likelihood and severity) and perceived protection responsibility. We expanded this research by differentiating the influence of these factors on different types of wildfire preparedness (e.g., preparations for evacuation vs. for defending the house) and measured actual rather than intended preparedness. In addition, we tested the relation between preparedness and two additional threat-related expectations: the expectation that one can rely on an official warning and the expectation of encountering obstacles (e.g., the loss of utilities) during a fire. A survey completed by 1,003 residents of wildfire-prone areas in Perth, Australia, revealed that perceived risk (especially risk severity) and perceived protection responsibility were both positively associated with all types of preparedness, but the latter did not significantly predict preparedness after controlling for other predictors and demographics. Also, the two new expectancy-based factors were significantly associated with all types of preparedness, and remained significant predictors of some types of preparedness after controlling for other predictors and demographics: the expectation of being able to rely on an official fire warning and expecting to lose electricity both still predicted less preparedness around house resilience, and expecting to lose water still predicted increased planning preparedness. We discuss public policy implications that follow from this research.
居住在野火频发地区的人往往会形成自己与灾害相关的预期，这可能会影响他们准备应对火灾的意愿。过去的研究已经确定了两个与人们准备应对自然灾害的意图相关的重要基于预期的因素：感知风险（即感知威胁的可能性和严重程度）和感知保护责任。我们通过区分这些因素对不同类型的野火准备（例如，疏散准备与房屋防御准备）的影响，并测量实际的而不是预期的准备，扩展了这项研究。此外，我们还测试了准备程度与另外两个与威胁相关的预期之间的关系：一个人可以依靠官方警告的期望以及在火灾中遇到障碍（例如，公用事业设施丧失）的期望。一项由澳大利亚珀斯野火频发地区的 1003 名居民完成的调查显示，感知风险（尤其是风险严重程度）和感知保护责任都与所有类型的准备程度呈正相关，但在控制其他预测因素和人口统计学因素后，后者并没有显著预测准备程度。此外，这两个新的基于预期的因素与所有类型的准备程度都显著相关，并且在控制其他预测因素和人口统计学因素后，仍然是某些类型准备程度的显著预测因素：能够依靠官方火灾预警的期望和预计会失去电力都仍然预测房屋弹性方面的准备程度较低，而预计会停水仍然预测规划准备程度增加。我们讨论了这项研究带来的公共政策影响。
