Citation

Iizuka A. Prog. Disaster Sci. 2022; 15: e100239.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2022, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.pdisas.2022.100239

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Foreign residents in Japan are considered particularly vulnerable to various disasters; accordingly, previous studies have documented their experiences in the context of how and why they are more vulnerable to certain disasters. However, only a few have compared this group's vulnerability to that of Japanese individuals. Thus, this study aims to compare the vulnerability of foreign and Japanese people to disasters, focusing particularly on university students. A quantitative methodology involving a questionnaire survey conducted on 133 foreign and 150 Japanese students was adopted. The results reveal that many international students had experienced an earthquake for the first time after coming to Japan. Therefore, they possessed a lower degree of knowledge of such disaster events compared to the wider Japanese population. Another notable finding is that more Japanese students felt anxious about the types of disasters and were worried about a given disaster's impact on their lives, in terms of danger to life, collapse of homes, and paralysis of the transportation network. However, Japanese respondents were less prepared for disasters than international students. Therefore, the findings suggest the need to provide disaster-related seminars and drills for international students for their knowledge enhancement and to establish preparatory efforts among Japanese students.

Language: en

Keywords

Disasters; International students; Japan; Perception; Preparation; University