Developing emergency preparedness indices for local governments

Emergency preparedness refers to steps taken prior to the onset of an emergency in an effort to improve the ability to respond to and recover from potential disasters. Local governments need a means of assessing their emergency preparedness in order to better focus their future efforts. Indices have been used in other aspects of hazard research as a means of summarizing complex information into an easily understood value, but have not yet been applied to emergency preparedness. The process to develop an emergency preparedness index is discussed, and three possible indices are presented: fire stations per thousand, a composite index, and a scale-adjusted regression approach. A sample analysis of each method was conducted using data from fire stations for the 29 counties in Utah to illustrate the feasibility of each method and the usefulness of the results. Strengths and weaknesses of each method are discussed in regards to which method is most appropriate to aid local governments in evaluating and monitoring their emergency preparedness. The scale-adjusted regression approach was found to be the most effective for comparing communities with widely diverging populations and resources (e.g., urban versus rural), as well as being the most practical for local officials to implement and interpret.