Vol. 8, Issue 9, Part C (2022)

Introduction: India with its vast population and unique geo-physical characteristics is one of the world’s most disaster-prone countries. The present study is taken under research to assess the effectiveness of education and awareness programme on disaster preparedness among inhabitants of selected community of New Delhi. The objectives were to assess their knowledge on disaster preparedness, to develop, administer and evaluate the effectiveness of education and awareness program on disaster preparedness, to determine the association between post test knowledge on disaster preparedness and selected demographic variables such as age, sex, education, occupation and previous disaster experience among community inhabitants.

Methodology: Research approach selected for the study was quantitative approach with pre experimental one group pre test and post design. The sample comprised of 60 community inhabitants of Mohan Baba Nagar, Badarpur, selected by purposive sampling. Tool developed and used for data collection was structured knowledge questionnaire to assess the effectiveness of education and awareness programme on disaster preparedness among .community inhabitants on aspects of disaster and disaster preparedness. Tool was translated in local spoken language i.e. Hindi and administered through paper and pencil method.

Results: Finding revealed significantly statistical difference between mean pre-test and post test scores. The mean post-test knowledge scores (29.87) of community inhabitants regarding disaster preparedness was higher than their mean pre-test knowledge scores (20.85) with a mean difference of 9.02 and computed ‘z’-value (7.973). There was no significant association between post-test knowledge scores and age, sex, education, occupation and previous experience of disaster of the subjects.

Conclusion: The education and awareness program on Disaster Preparedness developed by the researcher was found to be effective in enhancing the knowledge of community inhabitants.