Increasing Disaster Medical Assistance Teams’ Intent to Engage with Specific Hazards

Keita Iyama, Takeyasu Kakamu, Kazunori Yamashita, Yoshinobu Sato, Jiro Shimada, Osamu Tasaki and Arifumi Hasegawa
Additional contact information
Keita Iyama: Department of Radiation Disaster Medicine, Fukushima Medical University, Fukushima 960-1295, Japan
Takeyasu Kakamu: Department of Hygiene and Preventive Medicine, Fukushima Medical University, Fukushima 960-1295, Japan
Kazunori Yamashita: Acute and Critical Care Center, Nagasaki University Hospital, Nagasaki 852-8501, Japan
Yoshinobu Sato: Department of Disaster Medicine, Fukushima Medical University Hospital, Fukushima 960-1295, Japan
Jiro Shimada: Futaba Emergency Medical Support Center, Fukushima Medical University, Fukushima 960-1295, Japan
Osamu Tasaki: Acute and Critical Care Center, Nagasaki University Hospital, Nagasaki 852-8501, Japan
Arifumi Hasegawa: Department of Radiation Disaster Medicine, Fukushima Medical University, Fukushima 960-1295, Japan

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 21, 1-10

Abstract: To ensure human resource availability for a smooth response during various types of disasters, there is a need to improve the intent of those involved in responding to each hazard type. However, Disaster Medical Assistance Team personnel’s intent to engage with specific hazards has yet to be clarified. This study therefore aimed to clarify the factors affecting Disaster Medical Assistance Team members’ ( n = 178) intent to engage with each type of hazard through an anonymous web questionnaire survey containing 20 questions. Our results show that the intent to engage in disaster response activities was significantly lower for chemical (50), biological (47), radiological/nuclear (58), and explosive (52) incidents compared with natural (82) and man-made hazards (82) ( p < 0.01). Multiple regression analysis showed that incentives were the most common factor affecting responders’ intent to engage with all hazard types, followed by self-confidence. Thus, creating a system that provides generous incentives could effectively improve disaster responders’ intent to engage with specific hazards. Another approach could be education and training to increase disaster responders’ confidence. We believe that the successful implementation of these measures would improve the intent of responders to engage with hazards and promote the recruitment of sufficient human resources.

Keywords: disaster; emergency responders; hazard; human resources; intent (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/21/11630/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/21/11630/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:21:p:11630-:d:672875

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().