Knowledge, attitude, practice and perceived barriers of natural disaster preparedness among Nepalese immigrants residing in Japan

Abstract

Background Natural disasters have increased during the last several decades all over the world. Due to its geographical and climate conditions, Japan has long been vulnerable to several natural disasters. Coping with disasters is a major challenge overall and even harder for foreigners residing in Japan. Thus, the objective of this study was to examine the perceived knowledge, attitude, practice and perceived barriers of disaster preparedness among Nepalese immigrants in Japan. Methods A cross-sectional study was conducted among Nepalese immigrants residing in Japan with an online survey questionnaire. The questionnaire was validated and then administered. The participants were recruited via Facebook for this survey. Bivariable and multivariable logistic regression analyses were conducted to examine the factors associated with the perceived knowledge, attitude and practice of Nepalese immigrants regarding disaster preparedness. Results A total of 404 respondents were analyzed in this study and among them two-third were male. We found that the mean score of disaster preparedness practice was lowest than the knowledge and attitude (mean $$\pm SD$$ ± S D = 15.86 $$\pm$$ ± 5.52) as evidenced by the majority of the participants not being prepared for disaster situations and a limited proportion had ever taken necessary natural disaster preparedness measures. Japanese language was identified as the major barrier in assessing the knowledge, attitude and practice regarding disaster preparedness and was significantly associated with the knowledge level of disaster preparedness after adjusting for some socio-demographic covariates. (aOR: 1.84, 95% CI: (1.04 – 3.25)). Conclusions This study observed that the perceived knowledge and practices regarding natural disasters are very poor while barriers to access these are substantial among Nepalese immigrants in Japan. As Japanese language was identified as a major barrier, the availability of language translation services in every health care sector also in the government offices of Japan might encourage people to learn more about disaster preparedness.

Disaster Preparedness among Nepalese Residing in Japan: a Mini-Review

“…We found that there were higher number of respondents who uses Facebook and other social networking sites or applications to receive information regarding disaster preparedness. The detailed classification of the respondents has been published elsewhere [14].…”

“…(Table 2) Use of some social networking sites like Twitter and YouTube were associated with the knowledge and attitude level however, it didn't have any associations with their practice level. The detailed multivariable logistic regression model has been published elsewhere [14].…”

“…Sample size for this study was calculated to be around 384. The detailed process of questionnaire development and validation, sample size calculation, statistical analysis has been published elsewhere [14].…”

Enhancing earthquake preparedness knowledge and practice among Nepalese immigrants residing in Japan

“…The sample size was calculated based on our repeated measurement with pre-post study design with one pre-intervention measurement and three post-intervention measurements 45 . where, δ plan = mean effect size (40% more than the standard population) 15 , σ plan is the corresponding standard deviation, φ is the 1 as it is pre-post study design and the ratio between pre-test and post-test sample is 1:1, Z 1−α/2 is the 1.96 (α = 0.05), Z 1−β is the 1.28 (β = 0.1), V is the number of measurements before intervention; it is 1 in this study, W is the number of measurements after the intervention; it is 3 in this study, R is the design effect, ρ is the intra-class correlation coefficient; we considered 0.5 as our data are highly correlated.…”

“…And there are multiple factors which could determine all kinds of disaster preparedness and not limited to earthquake preparedness like socioeconomic differences, language barriers, races and ethnicity, previous exposure to the disasters, etc. 13 – 15 . Japan is one of the countries with robust disaster management policies 16 .…”