Household preparedness for emergencies during COVID-19 pandemic among the general population of Nepal

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has negatively impacted the global economy affecting numerous people's livelihoods. Despite preventive behaviors and advancements of vaccination, the risk of infection still exists due to the emergence of new variants of concern and the changing behavior of the SARS CoV-2 virus. Therefore, preparedness measures are crucial for any emergency. In such situations, it is important to understand preparedness behavior at the household level, as it aids in reducing the risk of transmission and the severity of the disease before accessing any external support. Our study aimed to evaluate household preparedness level for emergencies during the COVID-19 pandemic and its relationship with socio-demographic characteristics among the general population of Nepal. Data was collected through a questionnaire survey. Descriptive statistics, a Chi-square test, and logistic regression model were used for analysis. The study demonstrated that 59.2% had a good preparedness level. Good preparedness was observed among the respondents living in urban areas, those who were married, had white-collar occupations, high-education with graduate and above and high-income levels with monthly income >NPR 20,000, and were young-aged. The study findings underscore the need to develop tailored programs on preparedness prioritizing vulnerable population. It further highlights the importance of proper and consistent information flow, resources distribution, capacitating human resources and better health surveillance.

Fig 1. Location of the selected districts (Bhaktapur, Chitwan, Kaski, Kathmandu, Lalitpur, Morang, Rupandehi, and Sunsari).

[The darkest grey thick lines covering the grey area represents the country boundary of Nepal and the soft grey lines inside the country boundary represent the administrative boundaries of Nepal separating different districts. The location of selected districts for the study is presented by rectangles. Country boundary and administrative boundaries shape files of Nepal, retrieved from Administrative Boundaries Reference (view layer) of FAO (https://data-in-emergencies.fao.org/datasets/hqfao::administrative-boundaries-reference-view-layer/explore?layer=0), under an open license (CC BY 4.0): https://data-in-emergencies.fao.org/datasets/hqfao::administrative-boundaries-reference-view-layer/about?layer=0. Figure created with QGIS software version 3.28, an open source Geographic Information System (GIS) licensed under the GNU General Public License (https://bit.ly/2BSPB2F)]. Source: Shrestha et al. 2023 [41].