Preparing for the threat of an earthquake

Preparing for the threat of an earthquake and preparing for the threat of a pandemic have some similarities. Interventions to increase preparedness are even more alike. That’s why, building on his work on public health threats (see Rubin et al., 2015, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0033350615003674), Dr Henry Potts at the UCL Institute of Health Informatics joined a team at the UCL Department of Clinical, Educational and Health Psychology who developed fix-it, a community intervention to increase earthquake and fire preparedness. Their first paper, now out, shows how behaviour was changed in a study in Seattle and discusses how community interventions in natural hazards preparedness can be better evaluated. Data from a second study site, Izmir in Turkey, are forthcoming.

Joffe H, Perez-Fuentes G, Potts HWW, Rossetto T (2016). How to increase earthquake and home fire preparedness: the fix-it intervention. Natural Hazards. doi: 10.1007/s11069-016-2528-1.