How do Disaster Types and Research and Development Play a Different Role in Risk Perception of Citizens?

Abstract

This study analyzes how disaster types and research and development (R & D) characteristics play a different role in citizens’ risk perception based on 1,000 Korean citizens in 2021 by employing a partial least square (PLS) regression. This study finds that R & D play the most important role in citizens’ risk perception. For example, the development of R & D shows very high importance with values of 1.355 for interest and 1.817 for severity. Next, social disasters and safety accidents exert a meaningful impact on citizens’ risk perception, whereas natural disasters do not influence them. For instance, traffic accidents are slightly important with a value of 0.700, and leisure accidents are moderately important with a value of 0.928 for severity. Third, socio-demographic variables show a moderate effect on citizens’ risk perception. For example, age shows values of 0.719 for interest and 0.816 for severity. This study suggests that governments should increase interest and severity of citizens according to R & D, disaster types, and socio-demographic characteristics.

Keywords

risk perception PLS OLS R & D

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