HOUSEHOLD PREPAREDNESS FOR EMERGENCIES

Smoke alarms or detectors installed in homes were found to be the most common safety precaution taken by households in Victoria with 97.2% of homes having a smoke alarm installed. The high proportion of Victorian homes with smoke alarms installed is largely attributed to the mandatory requirement of homes, both new and old, to have smoke alarms installed.

Electrical safety switches or circuit breakers were found to be the second most common safety precaution (75.0%) taken by Victorian households with 75.6% of homes in MSD and 73.3% of homes in BoV having electrical safety switches or circuit breakers installed. This is due to the mandatory requirement of all new homes and existing homes undergoing renovation or rewiring work in Victoria to have safety switches installed.

Portable first aid kits, which fall outside Victoria's legislated safety precautions, were found in 60.4% of homes in BoV and 53.9% of homes in MSD. Another safety measure falling outside legislated safety precautions in Victoria was first aid qualification, with only 32.6% homes in BoV and 28.1% homes in MSD having a household member in possession of current first aid qualifications.

In the two years prior to October 2007, 7.5% of households in Victoria had experienced an emergency. Dissecting emergencies by MSR revealed that 6.7% households in MSD and 9.3% households in BoV had experienced emergencies over this period. Storm, wind and hail were the most common causes of emergencies, reported by 3.4% of all households in Victoria.



View underlying table as an Excel spreadsheet: 1367.2 Presence of Selected Safety Precautions and Tenure Type: Household Estimation (file size 24kB).
View underlying table as an Excel spreadsheet: 1367.2 Emergency Plan, By Difficulty in Evacuating in an Emergency: Household Estimation (file size 22kB).
View underlying table as an Excel spreadsheet: 1367.2 Most Recent Emergencies in the Last Two Years: Household Estimation (file size 25kB).

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