Abstract: Emergency events are low-probability and high-consequence events. Since emergency events risk exists objectively, public preparedness intentions and behavior have an important impact on risk mitigation and damage reduction. It has been widely observed that people often fail to act, or do very little, to lessen their risk of emergency events damage. In order to explain the variance in public's precautionary action to avoid emergency events damage, a model of emergency events public perception and preparedness intention is develeped. This article aims to predict public preparedness intentions by testing a path model, including risk perception and coping appraisal based on Protection Motivation Theory (PMT). Causal relations are tested by means of hierarchical regression and structural equation modeling (SEM). Risk perception is composed of the variables "probability" and "severity", and coping appraisal is comprised of the three variables "response efficacy", "self-efficacy", and "response cost". Data are collected through questionnaire surveys in seven administrative areas in Wuhan of Hubei province (n=405). Overall, the results indicate that both risk perception and coping appraisal influence public preparedness intentions. And the coping appraisal is better than the risk perception at predicting preparedness intentions. In addition, the data show the explanatory power of three demographic variables, including age, education, and income. To motivate the public to take their share in emergency events risk preparedness intentions and behavior, it is essential to communicate not only the risk of probability and its potential consequences, but also the response efficacy, self-efficacy and response costs, which are statistically significant factors influence public preparedness intentions.

Key words: emergency events, public, preparedness intention, protection motivation theory, risk perception, coping appraisal