Public Disaster Awareness (PDA): Concept Construction and Case Measurement

Raising people’s disaster awareness is a prerequisite for enhancing their disaster-coping capacities. Although “disaster awareness” has long been a very common term in academic circles, disaster management communities, and even society at large, there still remains a notable lack of sufficient discussion regarding what this awareness of the general public specifically refers to, and how it can be concretely measured across different types of hazards and disasters, varied population groups, and diverse physical and socio-economic contexts. This gap is particularly acute in China. First, after reviewing the existing international understanding of the term of Public Disaster Awareness (PDA), this study newly defined this concept by drawing upon concepts of environmental awareness and environmental literacy in the field of environmental studies. Next, based on this new PDA definition, UNISDR’s terminology on public awareness of disaster, the authors’ extensive relevant research experience, and other valuable factors, this study proposed an education objective-oriented dimensional construct for PDA concept by fully incorporating UNESCO-UNEP’s classic understanding of the categories of environmental education objectives. Specifically, the proposed PDA dimensional construct comprises five specific dimensions: 1) disaster sensitivity and risk perception, 2) acquisition of disaster knowledge, 3) mastery of disaster-coping measures and skills, 4) attitudes and values, and 5) participation in disaster reduction. Subsequently, utilizing this novel PDA dimensional construct, the study developed several sets of disaster awareness measurement questionnaires that focus on people’s earthquake disasters awareness (EDA) to target different public groups in China: primary and high school students, their teachers, students’ parents, and the general public. Using these questionnaires and stratified sampling processes, the current EDA state and associated disaster education issues across several regions in China were surveyed over the past few years. Data analysis of high school students in Weinan, Shaanxi province revealed the following key findings. (i) Students’ overall EDA level was largely acceptable, but their performance in disaster sensitivity and local risk perception aspects was apparently unsatisfactory. (ii) Girls performed better than boys in attitudes, values, and participation, while boys were better in the knowledge dimension. (iii) As grade levels increased, students’ attitude and values, and participation became increasingly passive and indifferent. (iv) Extracurricular activities contributed much more to students’ EDA development than curricular education. (v) The EDA-building effects of different extracurricular activities varied; specifically, the overall effects of several activities were more significant than others, and each activity had its own distinct impact patterns across the five disaster awareness dimensions. Finally, based on these findings, education objective-specific policy recommendations for improving disaster education in local primary and high schools were provided. The novel construction of the PDA concept holds significant theoretical value for exploring both disaster awareness and disaster education. Furthermore, the central logic and specific strategies (e.g., approaches for PDA indicator development) that derived from measuring the seismic disaster awareness of China’s population have promising transferable practical implications for addressing similar issues regarding both other types of disasters and the disasters in other countries.