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San Mateo County Hazard Mitigation Planning enhance the dialogue between community members, local government, and other stakeholders and to use this dialogue to further existing equity goals. The first step to integrate equity into hazard mitigation is recognizing that disparities in health outcomes, inequities in living conditions, and lack of political power place many low income communities, people of color, people with disabilities, pregnant women, and historically disadvantaged people, among others, at greater risk from hazards and limits their capacity to adapt, respond and recover. With these factors in mind, the County’s framework for addressing equity through the 2021 hazard mitigation planning process had five components:  Decision making  Adopt equity goals and objectives  Ensure diverse representation  Outreach and engagement  Promote diverse community participation  Use trusted messengers  Translate materials  Meet people where they are  Ensure a transparent process  Hazard analysis  Analyze social vulnerability indicators  Identify historical injustices  Overlay hazards and key indicators to find hot spots  Mitigation actions  Identify actions that mitigate disparities (e.g. language and evacuation barriers)  Implementation  Build community partnerships for implementation of actions  Track outcomes to ensure accountability The County developed an equity resource paper titled “Recommendations for Addressing Equity in Hazard Mitigation Planning” to present this framework and to educate planning partners and the Steering Committee on disparities of underserved communities, particularly in hazard planning. The paper is provided in Appendix A. Outreach efforts for the current update included a specific focus on socially vulnerable communities and hard-to- reach populations. FEMA defines social vulnerability as characteristics that influence an individual’s or group’s ability to prepare for, respond to, cope with, or recover from an event. They note “…heightened vulnerability…may be compounded by deficiencies in infrastructure …. While not predictive, understanding where populations have increased vulnerability and exposure to natural hazards can help emergency managers take actions to lessen impacts to these communities before an event or distribute needed recovery dollars after an event.” Recognizing the multijurisdictional scope for this plan and the variation in core capability and capacity of the planning partnership, components of this framework were made optional for the planning partnership. Each partner received tools to apply the equity lens perspective and well as guidance on how to use them. These 2-3 What is equity? Equity ensures fair outcomes, treatment, and opportunities for all people, ensuring everyone gets what they need to enjoy full, healthy lives. It is the process of reducing disparities that are systematically associated with social advantage/ disadvantage. (Bay Area Climate Adaptation Network, 2021) What is an equity lens? Using an equity lens means being deliberately inclusive when making decisions. It introduces a set of questions to help decision makers focus on equity in both their process and their outcomes. What is social vulnerability? Social vulnerability is defined by the characteristics that influence an individual’s or group’s ability to prepare for, respond to, cope with, or recover from a hazard event. Understanding where populations have increased vulnerability and exposure to natural hazards can help emergency managers take actions to lessen impacts to these communities before an event or distribute needed recovery dollars after an event.