Emergency Communication for People with Disabilities

Communication during public emergencies is critical for comfort, security and survival. This is especially true for people with disabilities, who are considered a particularly vulnerable population. Understanding patterns of communication by people with disabilities - sources of emergency related information, communication partners, and modes of communication - can assist emergency response planners and also help keep people connected and secure. This paper presents survey research results from the "2021 National Test of the Emergency Alert System and Wireless Emergency Alerts", a self-administered online survey of 212 members of the Accessibility User Research Collective (AURC), in August of 2021. The most common source of information during an emergency for people with disabilities is local news (69.3%) followed by a weather or news mobile app (57.5%), word of mouth (42.9%), radio (40.6%), social media (38.7%), and national news (32.1%). The primary contact person during an emergency is a person's spouse or romantic partner (43.0%). Secondary contacts include family members (48.6%), friends (32.5%), and parents (25.5%) with significant differences between disability groups. Primary and secondary contacts are reached most commonly though text messages (63.7%), phone calls (54.7%), in person conversations (30.7%), and social media (20.3%) with some variation between disability groups.