Abstract
This study administered a questionnaire survey to 162 students who lived away from home and
attended a university in Kanazawa City, Ishikawa Prefecture. The survey assessed the students’ self-
evaluation of their awareness of natural disaster preparedness, their awareness of disasters, the current
status of their food stockpiles, and their learning experience and knowledge regarding food stockpiling.
Findings showed that students with a high self-evaluation of their awareness of natural disaster
preparedness had significantly higher awareness of disasters (i.e., the expectation that a natural
disaster would hit Kanazawa in the near future) and recognized that they had at least four days’ worth
of foodstuffs. They also had significantly continued to learn about food stockpiling until recently and
had more knowledge about food stockpiling. These findings suggested that these factors may have
contributed to their high self-evaluation of their awareness of natural disaster preparedness. Thus, self-
evaluation of their awareness of natural disaster preparedness generally reflect actual behavior and
knowledge, suggesting that increasing and maintaining knowledge through repeated learning about
disaster preparedness, such as food stockpiling, is important for fostering preparedness awareness.
