Preliminary Systematization of Earthquake Countermeasures and Consideration Toward Effective Usage of Earthquake Alert and Advisory Information from the Viewpoint of Behavior Change

Abstract

Theories of behavior change for health have been synthesized and successfully applied to real problems such as smoking. Health and disaster risk reduction have a similarity in that behavior changes of selves and groups lead to risk reduction. Therefore, considering the disaster countermeasures in the framework of the theories developed in health problems and adapting practical health promotion approaches to disaster problems are beneficial in clarifying the weak points and deriving new approaches in the disaster countermeasures. In this study, we attempted to associate existing earthquake countermeasures with the framework of Prochaska’s stage of change model (pre-contemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, and maintenance). We found that individual supports to those in the action and maintenance stages are weak in the earthquake countermeasures landscape compared to that of health promotion. In addition, for the problem of raising the responsive ability against earthquake warning/advisory information, the necessity for such individual supports and the human resources providing them were highlighted. It is considered effective, in the future, to evaluate the effectiveness of the stages of change model to disaster countermeasures and to associate disaster countermeasure items in finer scales in the model (such as personal (biological, psychological), inter-personal (social, cultural), organization, community, environment, policy).