Disaster Preparedness Levels: Traditional First Responder Roles and Affiliation with the Church

Following a disaster, police, firefighters, and EMS personnel are critical to the initial response, recovery, and community rebuilding efforts. Resiliency is linked to social cohesion. Mitigating role conflict (being torn between protecting their loved ones and duty to the community) requires traditional first responders, and their families, to be individually prepared for disasters. A quantitative methodology design was used to target a seismic zone that runs through two states. A high percentage of the regional population is affiliated with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a religion that actively promotes disaster preparedness. The questions for this research were from the Public Readiness Index. Comparisons were drawn between the 2007 data with surveys collected in 2017, preparedness between first responder roles, and with the influence of religiosity. T-tests, ANOVA, and multiple regression were used for the analysis. Findings included a statistically significant increase in preparedness levels to data collected a decade earlier. No statistical significance was found between preparedness levels of police, firefighters and EMS personnel. Religious affiliation with the church was found to be statistically significant in predicting increased levels of emergency preparedness. Two specific areas were identified as needing improvement by all respondents: having a family communications plan and reunification of loved ones. Further research should be conducted on disaster preparedness in traditional first responders versus civilians in the same region, disaster preparedness among those affiliated with the church, the influence of religiosity beyond one Christian faith, and using the same variables in larger, urban settings