Emergency communication access for deaf people

Without emergency communication access, deaf people can die. For example, communication warns people about natural disasters, disease epidemics, and other large-scale emergencies. Also, people who experience domestic violence need to communicate well with cops to regain safety. But deaf and hard of hearing people are often excluded from communication before, during, and after emergencies. As a result, they are at high risk of death or injury.

Author Alina Anna Engelman completed a literature review on emergency communication access for deaf and hard of hearing people. Meanwhile, her review includes both large-scale emergencies and individual emergencies such as domestic violence. Furthermore, the author completed a program evaluation for a training program for police. The program teaches them how to handle domestic violence emergencies with deaf or hard of hearing people. Additionally, the author held two focus groups with police to learn their competence and knowledge for working with deaf and hard of hearing people. Finally, the author ends with information about U.S. national policy issues.

The author completed this doctoral thesis on emergency communication access for deaf people  in 2012.

This PDF file is partly accessible for people using screen reading software.

Also explore other resources on deaf people during emergency planning and humanitarian response.

Photo credit: BC Gov Photos on Visual Hunt / CC BY-NC-ND