The Roles of Companion Animals in the Relationship Between Disaster Risk Perception and Willingness to Evacuate

Abstract

Companion animals are becoming increasingly common, and as natural hazards grow in frequency and severity, they play a critical role in guardians’ decision making about evacuation and shelter during disasters. Although many studies have explored the relationship between risk perception and willingness to evacuate, it remains unclear whether companion animals play a role in this relationship. This study investigated whether companion animal guardians exhibit a distinct risk perception-willingness to evacuate relationship compared to non-guardians during Category 1–2 and Category 3+ hurricanes. It also explored how guardianship characteristics, such as the number of animals or their dual role as support animals, influence this relationship. The findings indicate that being a guardian and the number of animals significantly affect willingness to evacuate and its connection to risk perception. For Category 3+ hurricanes, the presence of chronically ill animals further influences this relationship. Probability plots reveal that guardians have similar evacuation willingness as non-guardians at lower levels of perceived risk, but at higher levels of perceived risk, guardians show a significantly greater willingness to evacuate. Additionally, guardians with more animals are more likely to evacuate at a lower perceived risk but less likely at a higher perceived risk. For Category 3+ hurricanes, guardians of healthy animals show a higher evacuation willingness at lower levels of perceived risk than those with sick animals. These findings highlight the complex nonlinear role that companion animals play in evacuation decisions and provide insights into some of the contradictory evacuation behaviors by guardians reported in the literature.

Keywords

Companion animals / Disaster preparedness / Evacuation / Hurricanes / Risk perception

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