Accessibility Statement

The Urban Health Exchange publishes editorial guides and equipping briefs for community-clinic operators, street-medicine and outreach teams, mobile-health-unit coordinators, urban EMS planners, and harm-reduction program staff. Much of our audience reaches the work on shared devices, in the field, on metered connections, or while assisting clients who themselves have accessibility needs. We design accordingly.

We aim to conform to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1, Level AA, as our working standard. These guidelines explain how to make web content more accessible to people with a wide range of disabilities, including visual, auditory, motor, speech, cognitive, and neurological conditions. Conformance with WCAG is an ongoing effort rather than a one-time certification, and we review our content and templates against it as we publish and revise.

What we do to keep content accessible

• Readable structure. Pages use real headings, lists, and landmarks so screen-reader and keyboard users can navigate by structure, not just by scrolling.
• Text alternatives. Images that carry meaning are given descriptive alternative text; decorative imagery is marked so it does not clutter assistive output.
• Keyboard operability. Navigation, menus, and interactive elements are intended to work without a mouse, with a visible focus indicator.
• Legible contrast and scaling. We aim for sufficient color contrast and content that reflows and remains usable when text is enlarged or viewed on a small screen.
• Plain, durable language. Our editorial voice is deliberately plainspoken. Clear writing is an accessibility feature, especially for readers under time pressure or working in a second language.
• Lightweight delivery. We keep pages reasonably lean so they load on older devices and constrained connections common in the field.

Known limitations

We are honest about trade-offs here the same way we are about square-footage and budget elsewhere on this site. Some content may not yet fully meet our target standard — for example, third-party embeds, older published material awaiting review, or complex graphics that lack a complete text equivalent. Where you encounter a barrier, we want to know, and we will prioritize a fix or provide the information in an alternative format on request.

Reporting an accessibility issue

If any part of The Urban Health Exchange is difficult to use with assistive technology, or if you need a page or resource provided in a different format, please tell us. When you contact us, it helps to include the page address (URL), a short description of the problem, and the browser, device, or assistive technology you were using. We treat accessibility reports as a priority and will acknowledge them and respond with next steps.

You can reach us through our contact page. We welcome feedback from practitioners and community members alike — it makes the resource better for everyone who relies on it.

Ongoing review

Accessibility is not a finished task. As we add guides, services hubs, and field briefs, we re-check templates and new content against our WCAG-aligned standard and update this statement to reflect material changes. This page may be revised over time; the commitments above describe our current practice and intent.