The Role of Education on Disaster Preparedness: Case Study of 2012 Indian Ocean Earthquakes and Tsunami Warnings on Thailand’s Andaman Coast

Given growing evidence in population studies that education is a key driver in providing positive social and demographic outcomes, this paper further argues that education can act as a protective factor for natural hazards and climate risks. Using the Indian Ocean Earthquakes on 11 April 2012 as a case study, this paper analyses how households living along Thailand’s Andaman coast reacted to tsunami warnings and how this disaster preparedness varies by education both at the individual- and community-level. Based on multilevel analysis of the survey carried out on April-May 2012 on 557 individuals living in tsunami high-risk areas, we find that education – measured at individual-, household- and village-levels – has positive significant relationships with disaster preparedness controlling for relevant demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of the individuals, households and villages. There is significant village variation in the likelihood of adopting preparation measures which can be partially explained by differences in educational distribution between villages.