The link analysis identified seven pre-disaster social factors: children, people with disabilities, older adults, chronic and acute medical illness, social isolation, low-to-no income, and people of color. While each factor alone may present challenges for individuals, the interaction of these social factors intensifies vulnerability. People with these pre-disaster factors are more likely to be exposed to post-incident outcomes such as injury, illness, and death; displacement; limited access to post-emergency services; domestic violence; loss of employment, and property damage. 

Pre-incident social conditions represent the existing social vulnerability of people in cities. These social factors are based on a review of purposively selected literature regarding social vulnerability primarily in the context of emergencies or health.  There were a total of 63 social factors. The social characteristics that had ten or more associated social factors became part of the framework: chronic and acute medical illness, people of color, low-to-no income, children, older adults, people with disabilities, and social isolation. These seven social factors appear in the resultant Social Determinants of Vulnerability Framework.

Post-incident outcomes represent the types of impacts from an emergency or disaster people may experience. There were a total of eight post-incident outcomes from the literature. Six of the eight had at least one link to pre-incident social conditions: access to post-incident services; displacement; injury, illness, and death; loss of employment; property damage; and domestic violence. These post-incident consequences were directly or indirectly related to all of the pre-incident social factors in the Framework. However, they were most significantly related to three of them: social isolation, low-to-no income (had the most links to post-incident outcomes), and people of color.