Taiwan
is one of the natural disaster hotspots. In this island society, however,
the behaviors of people regarding their preventive actions against natural
disasters have been understudied. To investigate the factors affecting
natural disaster perception and prevention, this thesis analyzed the
plausible influences of personal characteristics, characteristics of risk in
resident communities and the expected effect of prevention. Using a
national probability data from the Taiwan Social Change Survey collected
in 2010, this study tested a model of natural risk prevention, with
consideration of structural factors such as community vulnerabilities and
frequency of natural disaster prevention. Vulnerability refers to a
person’s socio-economic status and living environment conditions. The
results from regression estimations show that the vulnerabilities factors
does not have a significantly effect on disaster prevention. People with
lower education, probably lacking knowledge of disasters, appeared to take
less disaster preventive actions. In addition, an individual’s response
efficacy did not significantly affect the frequency of disaster
prevention.