| Communities form an integral component of disaster and pandemic preparedness and
response. We aimed to explore the level of disaster and pandemic preparedness - with a special
focus on COVID-19 - at the household and community level among residents within 50 miles of
Idaho Falls. A structured online survey questionnaire was distributed through East Idaho News
and the Idaho State Journal, resulting in n=924 responses from people over 18 years of age. The
results highlighted that 29% and 10% of respondents were not prepared to deal with disasters and
pandemics, respectively (household level). The majority of respondents trusted healthcare
professionals (61%) for useful and correct information about COVID-19; followed by scientists
(46%), state departments (26%), elected leaders (8%) and social-media (5%). The overall
preparedness to disasters and pandemics at the community level was 50%. The regression
models showed that males, older than 35 years in a paid employment had higher odds of being
prepared to disasters, whereas unemployed, retired, homemakers and students were more likely
to be prepared to pandemics. Our study highlights the need for better household and community
disaster and pandemic preparedness.
Keywords
Disaster; Pandemic; COVID-19; Preparedness; Idaho |