Why disaster experience does not always improve Preparedness: The role of disaster learning and heterogeneous effects

The frequency and severity of natural disasters and public emergencies have continued to increase worldwide. Household preparedness plays a vital role in disaster risk reduction, yet the effect of disaster-related experience on preparedness remains inconclusive. Using survey data from 5,862 residents in China, this study separately examines the associations of past disaster experience and disaster learning with household preparedness. Conventional regression models and a causal forest approach are used to estimate average associations and explore heterogeneous effects across individuals. The results show that disaster learning, rather than past disaster experience, is positively associated with preparedness behavior, highlighting the importance of capacity building. In addition, both past disaster experience and disaster learning exhibit heterogeneous effects across individuals. Feature importance analysis further indicates that social capital, emergency awareness, and community infrastructure are important influential factors associated with preparedness behavior. By introducing a causal forest approach to distinguish the differential effects of past disaster experience and disaster learning, this study provides a more nuanced understanding of household preparedness and offers useful insights for developing more targeted household disaster risk reduction strategies.