Despite improvement, disaster preparedness among Filipinos still lacking - study

Eleven years since the devastation brought by Super Typhoon Yolanda, disaster preparedness among Filipinos remains lacking despite improvement in recent years, a Harvard study found.

- Janvic Mateo

The study, conducted by the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative (HHI), found a significant improvement in the self-reported disaster preparedness level of Filipinos.

But it noted that "it is not enough for a country with the highest disaster risk in the world."

From a score of 13.5 out of 50 in 2017, disaster preparedness among Filipinos improved to 19.2.

The score was based on five objective measures of disaster preparedness: planning, training, material investment, information and social support.

According to HHI, the Philippines obtained the highest score in terms of information support with 4.9 out of 10 (from 2.5 in 2017), followed by material investment with 4.5 (from 1.9), planning with 4.0 (from 4.1), training with 3.5 (from 2.3) and social support with 2.3 (from 2.7).

"A score of 19.2 highlights both progress and areas needing urgent attention. While it shows an improvement in disaster preparedness, the score suggests that Filipinos are only doing 38.4 percent of the kinds of disaster preparedness activities needed to be prepared," said Vincenzo Bollettino, director of the HHI Resilient Communities program and co-lead of the study.

"For a country as vulnerable to disasters as the Philippines, this is not enough, so we must accelerate our efforts to ensure Filipinos are investing, planning, training and building closer ties to their communities," he added.