Evaluating the cognition and response of middle/high school students to earthquake—a case study from the 2013 Mw6.6 Lushan earthquake-hit area, China

Earthquake is one of the most destructive natural disasters in the world. Improving social awareness and the capability of public response is an effective way to reduce the risk and losses of earthquake disasters. This study investigated the capability of earthquake disaster cognition and response (EDCR) based on a questionnaire survey of middle/high school students in the 2013 Lushan earthquake-stricken area. The results indicated that socio-demographic characteristics and prior earthquake experience play important roles in individual's EDCR capability. Female, low age or grade students are more vulnerable to the disaster. Han ethnicity students seem to have more skills for preventing and reducing earthquake disaster and could quickly adjust their emotions after the disasters than other ethnic minority students. Prior earthquake experience has a significant positive effect on the cognition and response to earthquakes, but this effect is gradually weakened over time, due to the loss of disaster experience and memory. Specified disaster education and emergency response drill are important to improve the disaster awareness and emergency response capability of the students, especially for the vulnerable student groups to natural hazards. Due to the importance of school education, it should not only focus on the schools and students education themselves, but also pay more attention to the related families and communities to promote social disaster awareness and improve the general public response capability to disaster.