Explore the Social Vulnerability Explorer
Visit the explorer tool on Metro's interactive GIS site.
Open the tool
Natural and man-made disasters reveal deep and longstanding inequities each time they happen. Many different vulnerable groups face barriers to accessing emergency services and programs. Disasters impact different groups in different ways.
Good data on who is vulnerable and why can help disaster professionals and communities prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters. Commonly used data from the U.S. Census Bureau sometimes do not fully capture information about vulnerable people and their needs. The Social Vulnerability Explorer boosts this Census data with other data sources that have demographic information.
The data can be explored at various levels: neighborhood, city and county. It offers this information in a way that can be visualized and analyzed through maps using only a web browser.
The Regional Disaster Preparedness Organization funded the development of the Social Vulnerability Explorer as part of the Social Vulnerability Tools project. The RDPO is a group of government organizations, non-governmental organizations and private-sector stakeholders in the Portland metropolitan region collaborating to increase disaster resilience.
The Social Vulnerability Explorer is a useful tool for planners, policymakers, emergency management professionals, health and human services workers, data analysts and data storytellers, and anyone who is interested in improving equity outcomes for vulnerable populations.
People can explore collections of data without having GIS expertise. Those with GIS expertise can download the raw data to create their own visualizing data, charts and maps.
Learn more about the Social Vulnerability Tools project