Hazards and Awareness

Senior Citizens

Key: Very High Risk (maroon)High Risk (red)Moderate Risk (orange)Low Risk (yellow)

Group Hypothesis

• If people receive education about fires and have experienced one then the people would feel more comfortable when confronted with a fire.

Results• 10 experts had experienced a fire in their lifetime;

meaning 8 of the experts had not experienced a fire.

• 15 experts say that it is highly likely for a fire to occur in their area, 2 people said it is highly unlikely, and 1 person did not know.

• When looking at the level of preparedness for if/when a natural disaster occurs 13 people said they are not prepared, 3 people said they are prepared, and 2 people said that they didn’t know how prepared they are.

• The trend of people not being prepared goes to show that although an expert who has experienced a natural disaster is fairly successful at assessing risk levels, this does not necessarily mean they are prepared for a natural disaster.

What will we do differently

• Now, we had to use the general question of “Do you feel prepared for a natural disaster?” as our preparedness gage, and this question was not specific to fires only so before we can give a definite answer to our hypothesis we would want to ask if people feel prepared for the specific natural hazard of fires.

Assigned Hypothesis

• Longer residence time in the region results a more accurate knowledge and level of risk perception.

– Our conclusion is even

though there were a lot of similarities, because of the people that seemed to not know the level of risk we agree with this hypothesis.

Fires

Assigned Hypothesis Cont’d

• Past experience with a natural hazard results a more accurate knowledge and level of risk perception.

• There are a few people that didn’t know their risk levels for each of the

hazards, but because they showed so much confidence throughout the answers we decided that past experience would give you a better idea on the risk of a natural hazard, although it would be a good idea to look more in-depth since everyone had experienced at least one hazard.

All Natural Hazards Risk Assessment

Assigned Hypothesis Cont’d• People with a more accurate

knowledge of natural hazards also have a more accurate perception of risk.

• There was only one person that

didn’t know the risk level and everybody else seemed to know their concern level so our group concluded that people with more accurate knowledge about fires also tend to perceive risk better.

Suggestions for Additional Useful Data

• Has the individual experienced a specific natural disaster in this location?

• Independent/Dependent?• How long has it been since the individual

experienced a natural disaster?

Suggestions for Additional Useful Data

• How old was the individual when they experienced their first natural disaster?

• How old was the individual received education on natural hazards?

• More specific data for each natural hazard preparedness.