Original Research

Effect of health belief model on flood-risk educational approach among elementary school children in Malaysia

Ezza S. Azmi, Vivien How, Haliza Abdul Rahman
Jàmbá: Journal of Disaster Risk Studies | Vol 13, No 1 | a1102 | DOI: https://doi.org/10.4102/jamba.v13i1.1102 | © 2021 Ezza S. Azmi, Vivien How, Haliza Abdul Rahman | This work is licensed under CC Attribution 4.0
Submitted: 21 January 2021 | Published: 30 July 2021

About the author(s)

Ezza S. Azmi, Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Malaysia
Vivien How, Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Malaysia; and Institute for Social Science Studies, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Malaysia
Haliza Abdul Rahman, Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Malaysia; and Institute for Social Science Studies, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Malaysia

Abstract

Worsening climatic conditions can subsequently lead to the frequent occurrence of unpredictable natural disasters. The early-life educational approach is one of the non-structural mitigations in disaster management, which are the most effective efforts to promote early-life disaster awareness and enhance the knowledge transfer in disaster risk education. By using the health belief model (HBM), this study aims to examine the effectiveness of HBM on the flood-risk reduction (FRR) educational intervention by looking into the perceived susceptibility, severity, benefit and self-efficacy among elementary school children in Malaysia. This study utilised the one-group pre-test–post-test design by recruiting 224 elementary school children in the pre-FRR educational intervention programme, and 205 who undertook a post-intervention programme a month later. This study showed that the FRR educational intervention significantly improved (p < 0.001) the overall HBM components during the post-intervention, particularly in: (1) FRR knowledge, (2) perceived susceptibility, (3) perceived severity and (4) perceived benefits. The one-way analysis of covariance test showed that knowledge transfer intervention is effective to improve all the HBM components that include (1) FRR knowledge, F(38,127) = 2.517; (2) perceived susceptibility, F(6,191) = 6.957; (3) perceived severity, F(20,163) = 2.944; (4) perceived benefits, F(25,153) = 2.342 and (5) self-efficacy, F(7,189) = 12.526. The impact of integrating HBM into knowledge transfer intervention was seen to be effective and provide a positive knowledge enhancement among learners. Therefore, it is crucial to implement a consistent and sustainable educational intervention to harness formal education for community resilience at an early age.

Keywords

health belief model; flood-risk reduction; knowledge transfer; school children.

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Crossref Citations

1. Exploring the factors associated with final-year primary school students’ flood knowledge, risk perception, and preparedness in flood-prone areas of South Thailand
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International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction  vol: 111  first page: 104697  year: 2024  
doi: 10.1016/j.ijdrr.2024.104697