Natural Hazards Preparedness in Taiwan: A Comparison Between Households With and Without Disabled Members

People with disabilities are one of the most vulnerable groups to natural hazards. Preparedness is critical to protect life and reduce disaster impact. This article discusses the knowledge of the disaster preparedness behaviors of people with disabilities using updated, representative data from Taiwan (2013 Taiwan Social Change Survey), with a comparison to households without disabled members. The adoption of 6 preparedness activities-relocating vehicles or valuable things to a safer place, purchasing insurance, securing furniture, preparing an emergency kit, planning evacuation, and participating in drills-are used separately as dependent variables. The unadjusted results from Logit regression models show that the households with disabled members are less likely to prepare emergency kits and to plan evacuation. But with the adjustment of risk perception (probability, consequence, worrisome) and other factors-experience of earthquake and typhoon hazards, home ownership status, whether there are children in the home, perceived social status, family income, gender, age, education attainment, and religious status-the differences in adopting all 6 preparedness activities between households with disabled members and households without disabled members become nonsignificant. Finally, the contribution, limitations, and practice implications of this article are discussed.