Education: An integral part of greater preparedness on disaster
Jay M. Cunanan
Any form or type of disaster is definitely hard to predict, especially those bound by earthquakes and climate change in general. But one thing is certain though: education helps one or a whole community prepare for disasters or calamities.
Raya Muttarak and Wiraporn Pothisiri , in their 2012 case study "The role of education on disaster preparedness," concluded that "formal education can promote disaster preparedness because education enhances individual cognitive and learning skills, as well as access to information. "
The case study noted that being prepared for a major disaster is the most effective way to minimize the damage suffered by the affected population (Banerjee and Gillespie 1994). Emergency management officials and disaster planners recognize that for the first 72 hours after an earthquake or other disaster strikes, individuals and families should be prepared for self-sufficiency because services and supplies can be disrupted and emergency assistance might not be immediately available (Russell et al. 1995, Basolo et al. 2009). Preparedness is also associated with successful evacuations during a hurricane (Howell and Bonner 2005, Dash and Gladwin 2007) and improvements in individuals’ resilience in coping with trauma (Bravo et al. 1990).
The researchers also examined how disaster preparedness varies by education at the individual, household, and community levels, and how education interacts with other characteristics in shaping preparedness behaviors. Moreover, given that people in a community interact and exchange information, and that living in a community with high average level of education is beneficial in improving preparedness levels.
Because preparedness action is closely related to how individuals perceive and act on risk information (Tierney et al. 2001), educated individuals might have more awareness of risks because they are likely to have greater access to information sources and be better able to evaluate the risk information (Jamison and Moock 1984, Rogers 1995, Asfaw and Admassie 2004). There is also evidence that education increases the acquisition of general knowledge that could influence values, priorities, capacity to plan for the future, and ability to appropriately allocate available resources (Thomas et al. 1991, Glewwe 1999, Burchi 2010). The knowledge and competence gained through education thus could be useful when a disaster strikes.
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