U.S. Climate Disaster Preparedness Communications with Accessibility Features

Primary Data Collection on Accessible Climate-Disaster Preparedness in the United States was created by Abigail Block. The dataset catalogs brochures, videos, PDFs, and web content from U.S. state emergency management agencies and the federal Ready.gov site. Data was collected between January 15th and February 3rd, 2025, focusing on communications that use plain language or actionable images.

Use Cases

• Assess the prevalence of plain language in official climate disaster guidance based on the described accessibility criteria.
• Analyze the use of actionable images in preparedness materials for different disaster types like wildfires or flooding.
• Compare communication strategies between state agencies and the federal government based on the described collection sources.
• Study the coverage of specific climate-related disasters, such as droughts or winter storms, in public preparedness content.

Strengths

• Data collection is temporally bounded to a specific period from January 15 to February 3, 2025.
• Accessibility features are defined using specific, cited guidelines (Federal Plain Language Act, W3C alt-text best practices).
• The dataset scope is clearly defined to include eight specific climate-related disaster types.
• File size is 293.7 KB, indicating a focused, manageable collection.

Limitations

• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Data excludes the District of Columbia, U.S. territories, documents focused on pets or earthquakes, and direct translations, which may limit geographic and topical coverage.

Provenance

Source

U.S. state emergency management agencies via the GSA database and the federal Ready.gov site.

Collection Method

Manual collection and logging of web content, brochures, videos, and PDFs meeting defined accessibility criteria.

Time Range

Data collected between January 15th and February 3rd, 2025.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-19 16:46:10; freshness should be verified.

Geography

United States (states only, excluding District of Columbia and territories).