Italy is one of the Mediterranean countries with the highest seismic risk. According to the civil protection department, since 1900 in Italy there have been seven earthquakes with a magnitude equal to or greater than 6.5 on the Richter scale.
The best known and most disastrous earthquakes in modern Italian history occurred in Val di Noto in 1693, in Calabria in 1783 and in Messina in 1908, more recently in Irpinia in 1980, in Aquila in 2009, in Emilia-Romagna in 2012 and in Amatrice-Accumuli-Norcia in 2016. These last devastating events killed more than 3,600 people, and caused considerable economic damage estimated at around eighty billion euros.
In 2019, the Research and Training Center in Disaster Medicine, Humanitarian Assistance and Global Health (Crimedim) of the University of Eastern Piedmont published a study on the perception of the risk of the Italian population towards a possible earthquake and analyzed the related impact on behavior of prevention and preparation of people. A questionnaire was distributed to 1,093 participants from different socio-demographic backgrounds in all regions of Italy.
The results obtained have shown that the population perceives the occurrence of earthquakes as unlikely, but also that, if they were to occur, the most widespread opinion is that they would be very serious and devastating events. Furthermore, the study suggested an average level of earthquake preparedness.
Some measures in the home are adopted more frequently than others. For example, a majority of participants reported having a flashlight and knowing the location of major gas and water faucets (84 percent). On the contrary, specific actions relating to prevention, such as making wall units, paintings and mirrors safe, are reported in very low percentages (30 percent). An interesting fact also emerges from the research: those who think that preparing for emergencies is their responsibility inform themselves and prepare effectively, however, only a small part of the participants (8 percent) assume this responsibility, while the majority of those interviewed (60 percent) tend to delegate the task to the state and in particular to civil protection.
The results of this study highlight an important psychological phenomenon that is emerging not only in Italy, but in research all over the world. Policy makers seem unaware that people don’t like to think about emergencies and disasters on a daily basis. Humans have inherent mechanisms intended to allow them to use denial as an adaptive strategy to better cope with difficult situations.
With this in mind, simply trying to raise public awareness is unlikely to have any effect on improving disaster preparedness. It is therefore necessary to think outside the box and propose an innovative risk communication that can motivate people to act to reduce the risk deriving from natural and man-made disasters.