Disaster Preparedness Perception in a Predominantly African-American Community of a United States East Coast Cit

This dissertation studied the perception of disaster preparedness in the African-American communities of a medium size, urban, east coast city after attending Community Emergency Management Team (CERT) training. This study analyzed the importance of individual perception of disaster preparedness, based solely on CERT training attended by urban, predominantly African-American community based on individual interviews. Through the study, the literature review revealed one study involving the perception of disaster preparedness, none researched the African-American communities' perception of disaster preparedness. The literature discussed individual disaster and community disaster preparedness. The literature also found that CERT's are needed for communities to prepare for and recover from disasters. A qualitative methodology with a generic qualitative approach was used for the framework of this study. Fifteen qualified CERT team members from the African-American community were interviewed by the researcher over the course of five months using the same instrument for all interviews; all responses were recorded and coded for analysis. The coding was analyzed using the constant comparison method and revealed themes which aided in the overall analysis of the data received from the interviews. The analysis results indicated that after CERT training, the African-American CERT team members did in fact feel more prepared for a disaster than prior to the training. The analysis also revealed that although they felt personally prepared for a disaster, community involvement and preparation was lacking.