Disaster Preparedness and Its Associated Factors Among Adults Residing in Urban Slums of Bhubaneswar: A...

Introduction Disasters are unplanned events with the potential to cause disruption to life and property, warranting immediate action. However, preparedness for the same can be beneficial in saving lives and decreasing loss to property. This has graver consequences in urban slums compared to better furnished regions owing to improper housing conditions, low standard of living and improper drainage in the latter. Odisha is a land of many cyclones and floods, and hence, the current study was undertaken to assess the level of disaster preparedness among adults residing in the urban slums of Bhubaneswar and to determine the factors affecting the level of disaster preparedness among them. Methods This cross-sectional study was carried out in urban slums under the field practice area of a teaching hospital of Odisha over a period of three months (June-August 2024) after getting institutional ethical clearance. A total of 164 adults of either gender who resided in the slums for over one year and who provided informed consent were included in the study. Written informed consent was obtained if the respondent was literate and left a thumb impression in the presence of a witness from his/her family if the participant was illiterate. Data was collected using a semi-structured and pre-tested questionnaire. Only completed data sets (157) were entered in a Microsoft Excel (Microsoft Corp., Redmond, WA, USA) spreadsheet and analyzed using Epi-Info software version 7.2.5. Chi-square test and f-test, wherever applicable, were used as the tests of significance, and a p-value < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Odds ratios and confidence intervals were used for better interpretation of the strength of association. Results A total of 157 completed data sheets were analyzed. Around 147 (93.63%) of the study participants had faced some kind of disaster (cyclones and/or floods), but only 105 (66.88%) of the entire study population had heard about disaster preparedness. The level of disaster preparedness was assessed using a set of 12 questions, and according to the number of correctly answered questions, the participants were grouped under different categories. Of the total population, only 49 (31.21%) of the participants had moderate preparedness, while the other 108 (68.79%) were somewhat unprepared. It was seen that factors like gender of the respondent (p = 0.022), socio-economic status (p = 0.0019), those who had ever faced a disaster (p = 0.0024) and the kind of disaster faced (if any) (p = < 0.0001) were some of the factors associated with disaster preparedness in the study population. Conclusion Disaster preparedness plays an important role in reducing its impact, and the current study depicted that some level of preparedness was present in all the study participants. Some of the socio-demographic factors, like female gender, socio-economic status and having faced a disaster in the past, played a major role in disaster preparedness among the adult residents of the urban slum community.