Personal Safety Management

Personal Safety Management refers to the informed, agential, and proactive participation of an individual in maintaining their own physical safety. Coined in accessibility research by Branham et al. (2017), the concept highlights how people with disabilities — particularly those who are blind — face unique challenges in assessing and responding to interpersonal threats due to inaccessible visual cues about other people, their behavior, and their intentions. Personal Safety Management encompasses threat assessment, communication with authorities, escape planning, and the strategic use of assistive technologies to increase awareness of one's surroundings and the people in them.