Autistic individuals often face traumatic encounters with first responders due to a lack of understanding and training on autism-specific behaviors. Research shows that a significant percentage of autistic youth have negative interactions with police, leading to fears among autistic individuals and their caregivers. Current de-escalation protocols based on behavioral science are effective but not widely accessible or integrated into first responder training.

Although the adoption of the American with Disabilities Act (ADA) shifted the paradigm for physical accessibility, many aspects of the built environment are still not easy or satisfying for people who use wheelchairs. This is mainly due to the practice of the building industry, i.e., the compliance of those guidelines mainly focuses on design and construction requirements whereas the actual experience of wheelchair users is not fully investigated after the construction phase.

Popular destinations, such as national parks, and their gateway communities are co-dependent, complex systems. The remote and fragile economies are exposed to compounding stressors, such as disasters, peak visit seasons, and infrastructure and workforce capacity limitations. Future long-term resiliency planning is critical; however, existing efforts have been siloed, non-comprehensive, and limited to short planning horizons.