A Survey on The Disaster Preparedness Status of Foreign Residents in Japan

Abstract

Japan is a county in which natural disasters occur frequently. In contrast to Japanese citizens’ high awareness for natural disaster preparedness, foreign residents in Japan are assumed to be vulnerable to the disasters due to language barriers, cultural differences and especially, lack of disaster preparedness education. In order to address this problem, the authors aim to build a multiple language mobile educational platform for foreign residents in Japan to improve their disaster preparedness and awareness. As preliminary work for the platform building, a survey was conducted in May - June, 2020 to investigate the current status of disaster preparedness and awareness of foreign residents in Japan. Two hundred fifty-one foreign residents located in 29 different prefectures of Japan responded to the survey. The results of the survey confirmed part of our assumptions that foreign residents in Japan are concerned about possible future occurrences of natural disasters but are not confident with their disaster preparedness knowledge and skills. Despite the fact that 69% of foreign residents reporting that they had participated in disaster drills, the majority of such drills were conducted in Japanese and targeting Japanese citizens. The results of the survey indicate that a multi-language mobile disaster preparedness education system would be welcomed and is needed for foreign residents in Japan.