Use of social media during public emergencies by people with disabilities

People with disabilities are generally more vulnerable during disasters and public emergencies than the general population. Physical, sensory and cognitive impairments may result in greater difficulty in receiving and understanding emergency alert information, and greater difficulty in taking appropriate action. The use of social media in the United States has grown considerably in recent years. This has generated increasing interest on the part of national, state and local jurisdictions in leveraging these channels to communicate public health and safety information. How and to what extent people with disabilities use social and other communications media during public emergencies can help public safety organizations understand the communication needs of the citizens in their jurisdictions, and plan their social media and other communications strategies accordingly.

This article presents data from a survey on the use of social media and other communications media during public emergencies by people with disabilities conducted from November 1, 2012 through March 30, 2013.

The data presented here show four key results. First, levels of use of social media in general are high for people with disabilities, as well as for the general population. Second, use of social media during emergencies is still low for both groups. Third, levels of use of social media are not associated with income levels, but are significantly and strongly associated with age: younger people use social media at higher rates than older people in both groups (p<0.001). Fourth, differences in the use of social media during emergencies across disability types are slight, with the exception of deaf and hard-of-hearing respondents, the former more likely to have used social media to receive (p=0.002), verify (p=0.092) and share (p=0.007) emergency information.

These last two results suggest that effective emergency communications strategies need to rely on multiple media types and channels to reach the entire community.