Improved Knowledge of Disaster Preparedness in Underrepresented Secondary Students: A Quasi‐Experimental Study

ABSTRACT BACKGROUND Disasters cause significant human and monetary destruction and society as a whole is underprepared to address them. Disaster preparedness education is not covered extensively enough for health professionals or for the general public. METHODS A disaster preparedness education intervention was performed using a non‐randomized controlled trial of a convenience sample with a pre‐ and post‐intervention survey. The adapted Emergency Preparedness Information Questionnaire (EPIQ), a validated survey tool, was utilized. Participants came from a health professions educational enrichment program for students from under‐resourced high schools in the Kansas City area. RESULTS The experimental group shows statistically significant improvement in knowledge of disaster topics post‐intervention. Of 18 adapted EPIQ tool questions, 17 show statistically significant improvement in disaster knowledge post‐intervention for the experimental group with significance set at p