Citation

Xu D, Yong Z, Deng X, Liu Y, Huang K, Zhou W, Ma Z. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2019; 16(18): e16183345.

Affiliation

College of Management of Sichuan Agricultural University, Chengdu 611130, China. zhixingma66@163.com.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, MDPI: Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute)

DOI

10.3390/ijerph16183345

PMID

31514264

Abstract

Sichuan is a province in Southwest China that is famous worldwide for its earthquakes. However, few quantitative studies in China have probed the correlations between rural households' financial preparation, disaster experience, and disaster-risk perception. Using survey data of 327 rural households from four areas stricken by the Wenchuan Earthquake and Lushan Earthquake in Sichuan, the ordinary least square (OLS) method was used to quantitatively explore the correlations between these three factors. The results show that rural households' total family cash income, asset diversity, and whether rural households can borrow money from relatives and friends whenever there is a catastrophe such as an earthquake are significantly negatively correlated with the probability of disaster occurrence. Asset diversity and whether rural households can borrow money from banks whenever there is a catastrophe such as an earthquake are significantly positively related to the severity of disaster occurrence. The severity of residents' disaster experience is not significantly correlated with the probability of disaster occurrence, but is significantly positively related to the severity of the disaster. The research results can provide useful enlightenment for the improvement of financial preparedness and disaster risk management for rural households in earthquake-stricken areas.

Language: en

Keywords

Sihuan province; disaster experience; disaster risk perception; earthquake; financial preparation; rural China