We employed a normal distribution algorithm to calculate the appropriate number of respondents, based on their respective proportions within the total population. We used 95% confidence level and a margin of error of 0.10. The algorithm is described as follows. n = z 2 . p 1 − p E 2 (1) where, n is the sample size, z is the confidence level, p is the population, and E is the error margin.

With the numbers of population being 500, the minimum number of respondents based on this calculation was 97.

The eligibility criteria for respondents include individuals residing in areas directly impacted by earthquake disasters, particularly those who are native residents with ancestral ties to the area, aged at least 20 years, proficient in the Indonesian language, from diverse professional backgrounds spanning from farmers to office workers, possessing a minimum educational level of high school for village’s officials and any level of educations for common residents, and willing and capable of participating as respondents in this research project.

Questionnaire

The questionnaire was designed based literature study and expert discussions and consists of three main sections: individual awareness, building construction awareness, and disaster facilities and infrastructure. Individual awareness relates to the knowledge a community possess about earthquakes and their associated impacts, as well as the extent to which earthquake disaster mitigation efforts are understood by the population ( Utomo dan Tukino, 2021). Building construction awareness refers to residents' attitudes toward the construction of housing structures that can protect them from the impacts of earthquake disasters ( Hariyanto et al., 2020; Putranesia et al., 2023). Disaster facilities and infrastructure pertain to the behavior of a community in responding to disasters, including their efforts in preparing earthquake-resilient infrastructure independently ( Willar et al., 2022). The questionnaire contains twenty-one (21) questions utilizing a Likert scale to measure respondents’ levels of awareness and knowledge. The questions are;

Individual’s awareness •

Knowing you live in a seismically active location

Building criteria awareness •

The destruction of residential structures resulting from seismic activity

Disaster’s facilities and infrastructure •

Muster points

The questionnaire can be accessed by clicking the link provided in the Extended Data sub-chapter of this paper.

The survey and interviews were conducted using guidelines that covered the same topics as the questionnaire to obtain more in-depth qualitative information. There is based on individual’s awareness, building construction awareness, and disaster facilities and infrastructure categories. These categories were meticulously outlined in a questionnaire that employed uniform content and structure across both survey respondents and interview participants. The survey involved distributing questionnaires to residents, while interviews were conducted exclusively with officials of the study area.

Before conducting the survey, ethical considerations regarding the participants were carried out. All participants were fully briefed about the purpose and nature of the research, including the assurance of confidentiality. Prior to conducting the surveys, informed consent was obtained from both the respondents and interview participants. This was accomplished by providing them with the option to either check a box or sign their assent on the first page of the questionnaire, which was utilized for both surveys and interviews.

For ethics approval, our institution requires that all decisions be formally sanctioned. The study has obtained ethical clearance approval under the reference Number 353/KE.01/SK/06/2023, issued on June 5, 2023, by the National Research and Innovation Agency of the Republic of Indonesia. Indeed, the authors have agreed to questionnaire’s content.

The data collection was conducted from July 11th to July 13th, 2023, in the most earthquake-affected area of Cianjur Regency (see Figure 1). The questionnaire was disseminated to the community by village officials within the earthquake-affected areas, and the gathered responses were then returned to us by the village officials. Concurrently, the process of data collection for interviews was conducted face-to-face with the officials of the four affected sub-districts, i.e., Rancagoong, Nagrak, Cibeureum, and Ciputri. As previously explained in the Ethics Clearance chapter, the research background was first explained, followed by obtaining consent to participate, and then proceeding with the interview process.

For the data analysis process, we used Microsoft Excel software from Office 2020. We utilized the following weighting scoring method: wx i = ∑ w i x i (2) where wx _i is the total weighted score of variable i, w i the weights assigned to values of variable i and s i 1 to s i n are the score’s values of classes of variable i within the dataset.

As a new development, we transformed the weighted score value onto a Likert-4 scale utilizing the following formula: s i = wx i − wx r ∗ l − 1 sc t − sc r + 1 (3) where s i is the value of the transformed wx i , wx r is the lowest value of wx i , sc r is the lowest score calculated from the low Likert scale (1) to the total number of n , l is the Likert scale (4), sc t is the highest score calculated from the highest Likert scale to the total number of n.

We then modified the concept of Dacanay et al. (2018) to determine the community’s level of earthquake awareness and evaluate risk reduction infrastructure awareness ( Table 1).

To assess the correlation between disaster awareness and disaster preparedness infrastructure (houses and facilities), we used the Spearman’s correlation algorithm ( Spearman, 1904), there is: r xy = ∑ x 2 + ∑ y 2 − ∑ d 2 2 ∑ x 2 ∑ y 2 (4) where x represents the disaster awareness level, y represents infrastructure, Σ d ( BNPB, 2022) is the sum of the squared differences between the ranks of the corresponding pairs of data points. In the event of duplicate data, the computations for variables x and y can be determined as follows. ∑ x 2 = n n 2 − 1 12 − t t 2 − 1 12 (5) ∑ y 2 = n n 2 − 1 12 − t t 2 − 1 12 (6)

Variable n represents the total number of data points, and t denotes the count of duplicate numbers.

A correlation coefficient > r table 0.05 indicates a positive relationship between the variables. A significance level of 0.05 is employed as a statistical tool to ascertain the statistical significance of the Spearman correlation coefficient ( r) between two variables within a dataset ( Zar, 1972).

The questionnaire was also subjected to validation and reliability testing using Cronbach’s alpha. If the calculated value of r was greater than 0.7, it was considered valid. The majority of validity values were > 0.7, indicating that it is valid, while the reliability value was 0.942, indicating that it is reliable ( Sutrisno, 2023).