Factors affecting participation in groups for disaster knowledge and risk reduction

Abstract

When designing community strategies for disaster risk management, it must be taken into account that people interpret their risk status based on their culture, experiences or economic rationality, factors that promote or not their interest in participating in the groups that emphasize knowledge and disaster risk reduction processes in their communities. In order to investigate these factors, an investigation was carried out with the inhabitants of Medellín and the Metropolitan Area of Valle de Aburrá (Colombia). For this, a survey was applied to the inhabitants of the ten municipalities to identify the motivation for which they would be part of groups that work on the processes of knowledge and reduction of risk management; Next, the characteristics of the people who already make up this type of groups were determined in order to compare their traits; Then, the simulation game was played: Mechanism of Voluntary Contributions (MCV), with the purpose of investigating how willing people are to contribute to a collective DRM project. The above was analyzed through descriptive statistics.