Understanding Vulnerability in Alaska Fishing Communities: A Methodology for Rapid Assessment of Well-Being Index Validity

Indices measuring community vulnerability have been adopted as a way of understanding how fishing communities cope with social-ecological perturbations, and are a significant component of addressing issues influencing their sustained participation in fishing activities. This is especially relevant of Alaska’s fishing communities, which are continually faced with both ecological and socioeconomic disruptions. In an attempt to further our understanding of these issues in Alaska, we have developed a rapid assessment methodology to test the external validity of a set of well-being indices measuring community vulnerability. This methodology assists in measuring how well such indices reflect the communities they represent by measuring elements of well-being on a place-scale, and comparing them to matching index components. Through this, we are able to assess how well components of the well-being indices represent real world conditions.