Factors affecting city government emergency preparedness

Restricted until 5 Feb. 2011.While disasters continue to happen and public expectation towards effective government response remains, there is little consensus on what disaster preparedness is for local government and what factors affect preparedness. Gaining better understanding of this issue seems even more important considering that local government continues to be the official first responders in disasters. In this study we took a multi-phase approach to determine how emergency preparedness for local government was measured and then we built a theory for what factors might affect local government's emergency preparedness. We designed a survey instrument and administered it to city governments in California. Charter city, full-time emergency preparedness personnel, training, and exercises were found to be important predictors of disaster preparedness for city government