Reports

November 2016 – The Wireless RERC published a research brief summarizing the results of a study of 9-1-1 policies at the state and local levels in relation to text-to-911 and next generation 9-1-1 (NG911) deployments in the United States. The brief is a high-level summary of state emergency communications offices and public-safety answering point (PSAP) policies regarding text-to-911 and/or NG911 as it relates to people with disabilities’ access to emergency services.

The research presented in the handout was conducted by the Wireless RERC and funded by a grant from the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR).  It provides the background and results of research activities that examined the effectiveness of the Emergency Alert System (EAS) and Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) to provide messages to people with disabilities.  Specifically, the handout includes comparative analyses of the awareness of EAS and WEA messages, the accessibility of the two systems, as well as the types of protective actions taken

The Emergency Lifelines Workshop & Tabletop Summary Report is available.  The workshop, held in Spring 2016 at the Georgia Institute of Technology, hosted forty-four (44) individuals with active leadership roles in emergency communications at the invitation-only event. The event engaged representatives from academic, local, state, and Federal agencies to better understand the needs of individuals with disabilities during emergency situations, whether natural or manmade.

The Envisioning Inclusive FUTURES Summit Proceedings have been published by the Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center for Wireless Technologies (Wireless RERC) on our website. The Summit focused on 1) key social, economic, political and technological forces at play in the migration from legacy, analog technologies to mobile, digital technologies, and 2) the consequential futures for people with disabilities.