Global policies on disaster risk reduction have highlighted individual and community responsibilities and roles in reducing risk and promoting coping capacity. Strengthening local preparedness is viewed as an essential element in effective response and recovery. This paper presents a synthesis of available literature on household preparedness published over the past 15 years. It emphasizes the complexity of preparedness, involving personal and contextual factors such as health status, self-efficacy, community support, and the nature of the emergency. In addition, people require sufficient knowledge, motivation and resources to engage in preparedness activities. Social networks have been identified as one such resource which contributes to resilience. A predominant gap in the literature is the need for evidence-informed strategies to overcome the identified challenges to household preparedness. In particular, the construct of social capital and how it can be used to foster individual and community capacity in emergency situations requires further study.