Application of Behavioral Theories to Disaster and Emergency Health Preparedness: A Systematic Review

CONCLUSIONS Based on the articles archived and selected, behavioral theories and models are applied to disasters and emergencies preparedness more commonly in developed countries (USA and Europe). In Asia, where the annual number of disasters events and victims exceed those in other continents, only 3 studies applying behavioral theories and models to disasters and emergencies were identifies. This identified a need for additional research to target the use of behavioral change theories in the Asian countries that bear the brunt of disasters and their consequences. This does not, however, mean that these theories have not been used in Asian contexts. Our study only focused on the application of behavioral theories and models to the preparedness dimension of disaster management. Future work could expand to explore whether these theories have been used in response and recovery settings in Asia and elsewhere. HBM, EPPM, TPB and social cognitive theories were the most commonly used for different forms of hazards preparedness. These hazards were preponderantly various forms of influenza (H1N1 and H5N1), floods, and earthquake; no specific man-made hazards were focused, apart from the general terrorism. Theoretically, models and theories have elements or constructs, which are interdependent to each other and then finally influencing the main dependent variable within constructs. Hence, studies ideally purported to reveal this interdependence of variables/elements/constructs, be...
Source: PLOS Currents Disasters - Category: Global & Universal Authors: Source Type: research