At Risk Populations
At Risk Populations : "At-risk populations include groups whose needs are not fully addressed by traditional service providers or those who feel they cannot comfortably or safely use the standard resources offered in disaster preparedness, relief, and recovery. They include those who are physically or mentally disabled (blind, deaf, hard-of-hearing, cognitive disorders, or with mobility limitations), people with limited English language skills, geographically or culturally isolated people, homeless people, elderly individuals, and children. "Following a widespread emergency, people may find themselves stranded, displaced, destitute, homeless, or sick; or they may experience challenges from the emergency that leave them newly vulnerable or suddenly outside of mainstream communications in ways they did not experience before the emergency. These factors can create new at-risk populations during an emergency". (CDC/HHS, Locating and Reaching At-Risk Populations in an Emergency, 2007, p. 3). This report identifies "five broad, descriptive groupings for characteristics that put people at risk: (1) Economic Disadvantage, (2) Limited Language Proficiency, (3) Disability (physical, mental, cognitive, or sensory), (4) Isolation (cultural, geographic, or social), (5) Age The key to this approach is that it allows you to examine the nature of the vulnerability that might put someone at higher risk in an emergency. You avoid defining an individual or group based upon their vulnerabilities or using terminology to describe people as being vulnerable - a label that no one wants to have". (Ibid)
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