The impacts of training on farmers’ preparedness behaviors of earthquake disaster—evidence from earthquake-prone settlements in rural China

Abstract

Earthquakes have strong negative impacts on the development of global economic society. Fortunately, these negative impacts can be reduced through earthquake-preparedness behaviors. However, existing studies mostly focus on the driving factors of disaster-preparedness behaviors among urban residents, while few studies consider such factors among rural residents. Based on survey data of earthquake-prone rural settlements in China, this study uses the probit model and the Poisson model to evaluate the quantitative impact of training on farmers’ earthquake-preparedness behaviors. The results show that: (1) disaster prevention and mitigation training can encourage farmers to engage in earthquake disaster-preparedness behaviors; that is, compared with farmers who have not participated in training, farmers who have participated in training have a 21.39% higher probability of adopting earthquake disaster-preparedness behaviors. (2) Disaster prevention and mitigation training can improve the extent of farmers’ adoption of earthquake disaster avoidance preparedness behaviors, namely, compared with farmers who have not participated in training, farmers who have participated in training adopt earthquake disaster-preparedness behaviors to a greater extent, presenting an increase of 0.75 items. Therefore, this study provides a helpful reference for improving disaster prevention and mitigation training policies for settlements at high risk of earthquakes.