Poverty

Despite the widespread public use of the term poverty, many experts disagree about a clear and specific definition of the term. For the purposes of this article, poverty is a subjective measure by which an individual's or group's income level, standard of living, or access to resources are measured against those of other individuals or groups and found lacking, causing problems in daily life and long-term survival. It is a situation of need or lacking where affected individuals need more or better resources or are lacking in certain resources that would make their lives safer, healthier, easier, or better. Because income, standard of living, and resources (and access to them) vary widely from location to location, poverty levels must be considered relative to the specific area they occur in, whether at a group, local, state, regional, or national level. Although considering poverty within these specific contexts can create complications for crisis management, it is important that crisis managers consider it in these terms to provide more effective disaster, emergency, and crisis response.

Poverty creates specific problems for people that need to be dealt with by crisis management in times of disasters, emergencies, and crises, as it often puts people at greater risk and makes them especially vulnerable to such events. This need is complicated by the fact that poverty does not have the same effects on all populations, even in crises, making responses inclusive of needs related to poverty more complicated. Crisis management must account for and accommodate poverty and related needs when responding to disasters, emergencies, and crises but cannot apply the same set of parameters to each population or event.

Although poverty typically predates a moment of crisis, its presence changes the effects of crises and the crises, in turn, often exacerbate poverty. Because of this, some experts have suggested that the best approach to vulnerability reduction and, ultimately, crisis management is the elimination of poverty through long-term projects aimed at increasing incomes and standards of living, as well as improving access to critical resources. People who live at or below the poverty mark in a society (and some who live above it, but still at lower income levels) often lack resources to prepare for or respond to a crisis on their own and are at greater risk from threats and hazards. They likely lack the financial resources to suitably prepare for a disaster, recover from an emergency, or respond to a crisis. Such vulnerable populations are especially susceptible where social safety nets are absent. Moreover, this problem of vulnerability is further complicated for people living in poverty because they often exist in multiple vulnerable populations. Internationally, many elderly and children, women, and disabled individuals live in poverty, each characteristic (age, gender, sex, disability, and poverty) potentially placing them in an even more vulnerable situation than they would be otherwise.

Data collected in times outside moments of crisis can help prepare individuals and people involved with crisis management to support populations that live in poverty. Identifying areas of and groups that live in high poverty can help identify potentially vulnerable populations. With this identification, crisis management plans can account for particular needs that may be greater in poverty-ridden populations than they are among the general population. In addition to fewer financial resources, poverty is often correlated with a wide range of issues that can themselves cause problems in terms of crisis management. Although poverty often correlates with these problems, it is important to note that they are not all necessarily present in the same way in the same areas, so managing crises can be made more difficult without knowledge of the area affected.

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