Attitudes, vulnerability and disaster risk reduction: a systematic review

Abstract

Attitudinal vulnerability encompasses the psychological and behavioural determinants, including risk perception, preparedness, and response strategies, that affect individuals’ susceptibility to disasters. As the incidence and severity of disasters escalate as a consequence of climate change, it becomes imperative to comprehend how attitudes impact vulnerability to enhance disaster risk reduction (DRR) initiatives. The purpose of this study is to rigorously reassess the extant literature pertaining to disasters, attitudes, and vulnerability while proposing avenues for future research. This systematic review has been executed using the innovative PRISMA methodology. Keyword co-occurrence analysis has been conducted using VOSviewer software to elucidate the interrelations among keywords and to identify underexplored research domains. The Scopus and Web of Science databases were accessed to procure high-quality, peer-reviewed journal articles that served as the foundational resources for this study. Disaster research clusters around knowledge, attitudes and preparedness, social vulnerability and climate change, resilience oriented governance and vulnerability, risk perception and capacity linkages. Findings highlight behavioural determinants of preparedness, structural inequities in exposure and recovery, growing use of resilience frameworks and limited empirical integration of capacity and risk perception, especially in under represented contexts globally. This study stands as a groundbreaking systematic review regarding attitudes, vulnerability and DRR. The originality of this research lies in the synthesis of clusters of keywords and the formulation of a framework for attitudinal vulnerability in the context of disasters.