| In the last decade, governments, businesses, and households the United States have been encouraged to prepare for domestic hazards as part of the U.S. 'all-hazards' preparedness goal. Of these groups, businesses and households have received the greatest outreach, but are still largely underprepared. To help these groups enhance their readiness, response, and recovery, investigators must understand what factors affect their preparedness behavior. This study theorized that preparedness behavior was a function of person and environment factors from the workplace and the employee household that jointly interacted to shape preparedness knowledge at work and action at home. In the literature, there are few, if any, social ecological studies or conceptual models that account for these person-environment factors or for nested environments when studying workplace and household preparedness. To address this absence, this study developed and tested a new social ecological, stage-based, and nested Model of Workplace-Household Preparedness, and two new 'all-hazards' preparedness tools to better align the research with national readiness goals.;To assess these models and scales, a cross-sectional, analytic survey design was applied and then supplemented by qualitative key informant interviews. Data were collected in 2009 from convenience samples of private, large, critical infrastructure companies in California and their employees. The final study sample included 16 companies, 18 emergency managers, and 2,571 full-time employees.;Results showed that employee workplace and household preparedness was shaped through unique combinations of person and environment factors at different stages of behavior change (i.e., hazard appraisal, decision-making, action). The nested interface of the workplace and household environments also directly shaped preparedness behavior, as did positive messages received from one's social network, particularly through work. The 'all-hazards' preparedness scales also proved to be psychometrically-valid measures, and the research provided new benchmarks on the preparedness status of California's private sector and its workforce at the start of the 21st century.;This research adds to the literature empirical support for the role of multiple, nested environments in shaping individual preparedness behavior, and the utility of social ecological and stage-based models in explaining individual behavior change. These findings can be applied to help strengthen workplace and household preparedness. |
