Carson MacPherson-Krutsky

Communities exposed to Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquakes have diverse information needs. However, information about earthquake risk is often developed for general audiences and is rarely tested for its effectiveness at improving risk understanding or preparedness intentions for those general audiences, let alone ethnic minorities. Best practices in risk communication suggest that providing information that is personalized, clear, and culturally appropriate will improve people's willingness to engage with the material and improve learning outcomes. This study reports the test of a 2‐h earthquake preparedness workshop that was based on active learning principles, addressed earthquake impacts, preparedness actions, and included goal setting activities to motivate participants’ preparedness. We engaged local facilitators to deliver a culturally appropriate workshop in Spanish to 52 participants online and in‐person. A pretest/posttest evaluation revealed significant increases in expected earthquake consequences, risk area accuracy for shaking zone and liquefaction zone, positive affect, self‐efficacy, and, most important, preparedness intentions. These results indicate that an active learning strategy is an effective method of risk communication. However, further research is needed to identify ways to change the variables that had weak or nonsignificant impacts and to determine if the preparedness intentions ultimately produce preparedness actions.

A Cascadia Subduction Zone (CSZ) earthquake will cause widespread damage along the Pacific Northwest (PNW) coast of the United States. It is, therefore, crucial to understand how to reduce future impacts across this region and assess current levels of household preparedness. Here, we examine whether decades of risk and preparedness campaigns have established protective knowledge and promoted hazard adjustments for residents of the Portland, Oregon metropolitan (PDX) region, an area where risk and preparedness campaigns have been increasing over the last decade. We also explore how PDX preparedness levels compare to those in other PNW regions using analogous data from multiple surveys over a 20‐year time interval and assess PDX respondent's perceptions of risk information sources. We find that 63% of PDX residents do not intend to “Drop, Cover, and Hold On” (DCHO) when earthquake shaking starts and that, although residents are generally aware of earthquake hazards in the area, they are less aware of the specific risks for their homes. Furthermore, PDX residents’ preparedness levels seem to be comparable to those recently surveyed in Washington, but somewhat less than those surveyed two decades ago in California, though more comprehensive data are needed to verify these results. We also find that people rate risk information provided by emergency managers and their websites as more accurate, understandable, relevant, and new than other sources. Our results suggest that significant gaps remain in translating broad awareness of the CSZ earthquake into personal knowledge and preparedness. This work provides guidance to PDX emergency educators for more targeted messaging and provides methods to measure preparedness variables in other regions for future comparisons. By paying close attention to preparedness gaps, local officials can use their limited resources more effectively to develop strategies to inform their communities and improve preparedness before a major earthquake strikes.

Though significant research exists on earthquake hazard adjustment adoption more generally, research focused on how information seeking influences planned or actual preparedness behavior is rare, limiting our understanding of how information seeking translates into preparedness. To address this gap, our study tests a proposed model of household seismic hazard adjustment using questionnaire responses of roughly 400 households living in the Portland, OR metropolitan region. The proposed model includes components of the Protective Action Decision Model (PADM) with specific emphasis on past information seeking behavior, preparedness behavior, intentions to seek information, and intentions to take protective action. Other components include risk perception, earthquake experience, affective response, seismic risk zone residency, and demographics. Consistent with previous research, this study finds information seeking behavior to be the strongest influence on preparedness with other important influences being risk perception, affective response, and intentions to prepare. We find weak ties between risk zone residency and earthquake risk perception, though this may be because our sample has little experience with earthquakes and the majority live in the same earthquake risk zones. Importantly, longitudinal studies are needed to determine whether information seeking and intentions to prepare eventually result in household protective action.