Programs
The Pacific ADA Center’s mission is to provide resources, training, and support to improve awareness and understanding of the rights and responsibilities under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
The Pacific ADA Center serves:
- People with disabilities, and their supporters
- Businesses
- Governments
- Nonprofits
- Employers
- ADA Coordinator Networks
The Center is funded by the US Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Community Living, National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research; Program Award #90DPAD0006.Learn more about the Pacific ADA Center.
The ADA Participatory Action Research Consortium (ADA-PARC) focuses on identifying community and work participation disparities for people with disabilities. It is a collaborative research project of 7 ADA Regional Centers, including the Pacific ADA Center.
The ADA-PARC research has four purposes:
- Look at participation disparities experienced by people with disabilities.
- Identify and examine key environmental factors contributing to these disparities.
- Benchmark participation disparities and highlight promising practices at state and city levels.
- Develop strategies for the ADA Centers and others involved in community capacity building and systems change efforts to disseminate and use the findings.
People with cognitive and intellectual disabilities need clear, easy-to-understand information. Clear communication helps them fully participate in their communities. Clear communication also helps English language learners and those with lower reading skills.
Plain language and Easy Read are two forms of clear communication. Knowing how to use this type of writing can help you reach the largest audience possible.
The Inclusive Communication Project provides tools and resources for government agencies, businesses, and nonprofits. The project teaches organizations how to write in plain language and Easy Read.
The project also includes an online course, How to Make Information Easier to Understand, that teaches individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD) about plain language and Easy Read. It helps them turn complex information into easy-to-understand language using AI. They can use those skills in many ways:
- Employment
- Healthcare
- Voting
- Community services and events
The project is funded by the California State Council on Developmental Disabilities.
The Center on Disability and The Center to Advance Community Health & Equity (CACHE), both programs of the Public Health Institute (PHI), are developing a Self-Audit Tool for healthcare providers and practitioners to assess and improve the inclusivity of their practices for people with disabilities, specifically individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The Project is funded by Special Olympics Health and the Center for Disease Control.
Past Center on Disability Programs
The Rehabilitation Research and Training Center on Disability Statistics and Demographics (StatsRRTC) gathers data/statistics about people with disabilities and publishes those statistics in reports. These reports improve knowledge about and access to disability data that advance the quality of life of people with disabilities.
The Center on Disability at the public Health Institute (PHI) helped the StatsRRTC to distribute local disability statistics and produce the Annual Report on Disability to accompany the annual Disability Compendium produced by StatsRRTC.
The Center on Disability at PHI worked with the National Center on Health Promotion, Physical Activity and Disability (NCHPAD) at the University of Alabama, Birmingham to increase disability inclusion in health program initiatives and policies.
Center for Personal Assistance Services
Working with the University of California San Francisco, the Center on Disability conducted the training and distribution of information for the federally funded Rehabilitation Research and Training Center on Personal Assistance Services (PAS). The goal of the PAS Center was to improve the access, quality, and costs of PAS for people with limitations in activities of daily living so they could live independently, comfortably and safely in the community and participate in society. The Center on Disability also conducted research into PAS in emergency and disaster preparedness situations.
Assessing the Community Guide
Funded by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the purpose of the Community Guide project was to decide if the CDC’s health prevention recommendations in the Guide to Community Preventive Services applied to people with disabilities as well as the general population. The Guide’s purpose was to increase the capacity of states and communities to implement effective prevention and health promotion programs for people with disabilities.
The Center on Disability reviewed disability literature for the 15 topic areas of the Guide (Obesity, Nutrition, Physical Activity, Social Environment, Tobacco, Alcohol, Violence, Cancer, Oral Health, Vaccines, Diabetes, Mental Health, HIV/STIs/Pregnancy, Adolescent Health, and Motor Vehicles). The Center on Disability then conducted key informant interviews with disability researchers, and held focus groups of individuals with disabilities to gather input regarding the recommendations.
The final report resulted in the Community Guide Branch of the CDC including considerations of people with disabilities in its recommendations and including disability literature in its research systematic review process.
As part of a statewide Listos or “Ready” campaign in 2020, the Center on Disability engaged residents in three California counties to make emergency preparedness inclusive of people with disabilities, seniors and older adults, and people in poverty. When the coronavirus pandemic began, the Center also connected Californians with disabilities to essential COVID-19 information and resources. Along with our other Listos partners, the Center developed the Five Steps to Preparedness document that was translated into multiple languages and distributed to tens of thousands of Californians.