Earthquake risk perception and preparedness in Italian hospitals: preliminary results

The healthcare system plays an essential role in the response to disasters. Hospitals and health facilities are generally expected to provide adequate care for the victims of any type of event, including earthquakes, and to continue keep their functionality to maintain the health of the community they serve. The disproportionate impact of earthquakes often reflects the crucial contribution provided by an inadequate seismic response of the non-structural elements of strategic facilities like hospitals. For example, during the 2009 L’Aquila and 2016 Central Italy earthquakes damage to non-structural elements in hospitals, regarding specific medical equipment, caused severe limitations to the functionality of the healthcare services during the emergency and recovery. The ENRICH (ENhancing the Resilience of Italian healthCare and Hospital facilities) project addresses seismic performance and functional adaptability of non-structural elements in hospitals and healthcare facilities. The project is an interdisciplinary approach to resilience, where the crucial role played by non-structural elements in hospitals and the perception of their risks is acknowledged. The idea is that hospital and healthcare staff, faced with a daily health risk, could underestimate the risk of earthquakes, and thus undermine efforts to mitigate it. Therefore, ENRICH may provide the SPONSE International Association with different perspectives and insights on the needs of beneficiaries and the barriers that should be considered for progress in seismic performance to be accepted. The ENRICH project focuses on pilot studies in hospital and healthcare facilities settings and includes stakeholders' awareness raising on the resilience principles. In this paper, we present the idea behind the perception study conducted within ENRICH, the methods applied to conduct it, and the design of tools for awareness raising.