Massachusetts Climate Resilience and the Needs of People with Disabilities: Paths to Improvement

Adler-Abramo, Rafaello

Student Work

Massachusetts Climate Resilience and the Needs of People with Disabilities: Paths to Improvement

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People With Disabilities (PWDs) face four-fold higher death rates from climate emergencies, yet are often omitted from climate resilience planning. This project successfully catalyzed actionable PWD inclusion via Massachusetts’s Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness (MVP) program, which provides municipalities with climate resilience funding and resources. At this project’s start, MVP mentioned PWDs only as an additional vulnerable group, as if homogeneous, without actionable strategies. MVP is currently undergoing a 5-year update. As 95% of Massachusetts's municipalities participate, any changes will be disseminated state-wide. This project communicated to MVP the intersections among several climate hazards and accessibility needs. A policy is proposed to: (1) specify functional limits across disability types; (2) identify limits most salient in varied climate emergencies; (3) identify and remove barriers to accessing publicly available emergency resources, such as evacuation alerts. A tool was developed that incorporates the above in a single document, with resources for removal of barriers. These products are being presented to MVP, as well as introductions to PWD disaster mitigation specialists for ongoing input. An MVP official stated that, as this project has brought to their attention the relevance of disabilities to climate resilience, disability needs will be included in this year’s update.

This report represents the work of one or more WPI undergraduate students submitted to the faculty as evidence of completion of a degree requirement. WPI routinely publishes these reports on its website without editorial or peer review.

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