Disability and disaster risk reduction / emergency preparedness: Scoping review

Within the context of the Disability Inclusive Disaster Preparedness in NSW: Enabling Local Community Resilience Through Collaboration project, this scoping review presents an overview of the state of knowledge about people with disability and disaster risk reduction contained in the scientific literature.

The scoping review provides numerical and thematic analyses on existing disability-inclusive disaster risk reduction and preparedness literature. It demonstrates that the majority of the literature on people with disability and emergency preparedness remains primarily US based in a context of relatively highly developed emergency preparedness and warning systems. The focus, not surprisingly, therefore is on particular events and being prepared taking into account the usual population based approaches to ensuring the least possible loss of life and injury. There is a scattering of empirical reports from other countries including Australia which focus more specifically on the inclusion and participation of people with disability in planning, preparedness and policy.