Objective To assess the knowledge and skills in prevention, danger avoidance, self aid and buddy care, and disaster reduction in facing typhoon disasters among the urban and rural residents in a county of Wenzhou, so as to provide a basis for the government to make emergency defense strategy and carry out health education against typhoon disaster.
Methods A total of 585 urban and rural residents from Cangnan County, which was affected by typhoons most often and severely over the years, were selected for the questionnaire survey with multistage random sampling in December 2010.
Results The total awareness rate of typhoon related knowledge and skills was 74.3%, and that in the urban residents (76.5%) was significantly higher than that in the rural ones (72.2%) (P<0.01). The public consciousness and information demand on disaster prevention was significantly higher in urban residents than in rural ones (P<0.01). The mass media, such as cell phone short message service, television, newspaper, were most acceptable to people to receive the health education.
Conclusion The awareness, knowledge and skills of typhoon prevention among the residents in Cangnan need to be further improved. The contents of education for urban and rural regions should focus on different aspects with appropriate health education theory and method. Rural residents are the key population of the education, and mass media should be the major tool to carry out health education.
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