Better acknowledging and resourcing the information accessibility sector in Australia
Everyone needs information in a public health crisis or disaster event to help them know what to do to stay safe.
For people with disability, it is critical that this information is accessible and high-quality, e.g. it is thorough, timely and up-to-date.
However, recent experiences during the pandemic, bushfires and floods have shown that the organisations who make accessible information have not been well-resourced (either in money or logistical resources) to make the required accessible crisis information.
The impact of this issue has been highlighted by the findings of the Disability Royal Commission and by disability advocacy organisations. Improvements are particularly important as climate change is making extreme weather events more common and more intense , so we can expect accessible crisis information to be needed more and more often.
This research aimed to understand the situation for organisations who make accessible information, and provide recommendations for improvements, so that people with disability will have better access to accessible crisis information in future.
It explores:
- What information accessibility means in practice
- The experience of organisations who make accessible information during the pandemic, bushfires and floods
- The facilitators and barriers these organisations currently face
- Resourcing/policy changes required to ensure quality provision of accessible information for people with disability during future public health crises and disaster events.
Findings and Recommendations
Making accessible crisis information is difficult, because of there is often a high volume of information that needs to be released, specialised medical and safety information is involved, frequent changes are made to the information that needs to be conveyed and the work at required at speed.
It is even more difficult to do this work when the organisations who make accessible information are under-resourced during non-crisis times and then receive little-to-no extra resources or support in crises, despite the heightened information needs involved.
Key recommendations and actions needed to better support organisations who make accessible information from the report include:
- Introduce an explicit legal requirement for accessible information
- Resource the information accessibility sector in an ongoing, informed/realistic and diversified way
This research was done in partnership with IDEAS Disability Information and funded by UNSW Disability Innovation Institute.