Health emergency preparedness behavior and its influencing factors among elderly people in the community of Qiqihar

•Nurses, managers, and elderly people from multiple dimensions and perspectives.•Propose a grid based comprehensive intervention strategy.•Emphasize the improvement of self-efficacy among the elderly•Flashlight, three-day food and water, multifunctional tool kit is best to use. To facilitate targeted interventions for elderly individuals, we investigated the current status of health emergency preparedness behavior of elderly people in the community of China Qiqihar and analyzed its influencing factors. From October 2019 to January 2020, 700 elderly people living in Qiqihar, were selected by a stratified quota sampling method for face-to-face investigation. The research tool was the Questionnaire on Health Emergency Preparedness Level of the old people in the Community, which was revised based on previous studies. Approximately 40 % of elderly individuals in the community had good health emergency preparedness behavior. The results showed that a safe home environment (β=7.171, p < 0.001), a high level of emergency knowledge (β=2.257, p = 0.024), emergency knowledge education (β=3.405, p = 0.001), emergency knowledge through network channels (β=2.960, p = 0.003) and higher risk response self-efficacy (β=6.253, p < 0.001) were promoters of emergency preparedness behavior among elderly individuals in the community. The general health emergency preparedness behavior of elderly people in the community of Qiqihar was moderate. Community nurses should cooperate with workers to conduct targeted emergency knowledge training and practices to improve the home safety environment and rise emergency preparedness awareness and behavior of aged people at home in the community