Community Empowerment and the Associated Factors among the 2014 Flood Victims in Pahang

Community empowerment plays an important role in adapting and preparing towards flood risks and impacts. The flood which occurred in 2014 had severely affected three states in the east coast of Peninsular Malaysia and left a significant mark on the communities residing in those areas. A cross sectional study was conducted in 2015 by distributing a validated semi guided questionnaires among flood victims in three worst affected districts in Pahang. The objective was to assess the status of community empowerment and its associated factors. The Individual Community Related Empowerment (ICRE) tool was used to assess the community empowerment. A total of 602 respondents participated in this study. The majority of the respondents were males of Malay ethnic, residing in rural villages. Their ages ranged from 19 to 88 years old, with an average age of 48 years old. The community empowerment domains in our study were self-efficacy, intention, participation, motivation and critical awareness. Younger age was associated with higher self-efficacy. Males were found to have higher participation and motivation. Those who experienced more health symptoms were positively significantly correlated with all domains of empowerment except for self-efficacy. In conclusion, low status of empowerment is seen in all domains except for motivation and critical awareness.