J. Twigg, UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON, LONDON, United Kingdom
Abstract
Vulnerability and Capacity Assessment (VCA) is now widely used by organisations working in disaster risk reduction to identify vulnerable groups and assess their vulnerability to hazards and other external threats. Many VCA methods and guidelines are available, all of which seek to enable users to focus on the most vulnerable groups in society, which must include disabled people. However, in practice, it is not clear that disability is being identified as a key factor in vulnerability and it appears likely that disabled people continue to be overlooked in assessments. This paper reports on a pilot study that looks at a variety of VCAs, from different locations, at different scales, and using different assessment approaches, to review how they have identified and analysed disability in the context of vulnerability to disasters.