Center on Disability Projects

Pacific ADA Center

The Pacific ADA Center builds partnerships between the disability and business communities and promotes full and unrestricted participation in society for persons with disabilities through education and technical assistance.

The Pacific ADA Center is one of ten Regional centers nationally that have been set up to provide information and referral, training, consultation, and technical assistance to the business, state and local government, and disability communities about their responsibilities and rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act. In 2006, the Center received funding to conduct research, resulting in papers on why employers do not hire and retain workers with disabilities and advice from successful workers with disabilities on disclosure, interviewing, and job search.

The Pacific ADA Center includes over 60 consultants, staff and subcontracts with more than 38 entities region wide. Nationally, the Center participates in nationwide training projects and the development of materials for broad base distribution. Pacific ADA Center works directly with the Departments of Justice, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, U.S. Access Board, Department of Transportation, and the Federal Communications Commission to implement the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Pacific ADA Center is leading a National effort for the ADA Network to present webinars related to people with disabilities and emergency preparedness and management.

The Pacific ADA Center developed and maintains a collaborative project at AccessibleTech.org. The mission of this project is to promote full and unrestricted participation in business and society by persons with disabilities through the use of electronic information technology that is universally accessible.

Community and Work Disparities: A Program of the ADA Participatory Action Research Consortium (ADA-PARC)

The Pacific ADA Center is working in conjunction with the Institute for Rehabilitation Research (TIRR) Memorial Hermann to conduct Community and Work Disparities: A Program of the ADA Participatory Action Research Consortium (ADA-PARC). The Pacific ADA Center is taking the lead on the Community Living section of the research and will conduct a longitudinal analysis of Medicaid waiver and HCBS participants and expenditures, an analysis of Olmstead cases, a survey of Medicaid waiver recipients, and other relevant community data collection.

Community & Work Disparities.

Disability Statistics and Demographics Rehabilitation and Research Training Center (StatsRRTC)

The mission of the Rehabilitation Research and Training Center on Disability Statistics and Demographics (StatsRRTC) is to narrow and actively bridge the divide between the producers and end users of disability statistics, thereby supporting better data collection, more accurate information, better decision-making, more effective programs, and better lives for people with disabilities. The Center on Disability at PHI is assisting on the dissemination of local disability statistics and the production of the Annual Report on Disability to accompany the annual Disability Compendium produced by the Stats RRTC. These projects provide access to timely and relevant disability statistics, as well as producing customized statistical analyses and compilations for key stakeholders and allowing users to create customized reports via a State/Local Statistics Generator. The Center on Disability at PHI has created state by state data down to the local level for several disability measures from the American Community Survey .

We have also created a document providing guidance on how to find disability data at the state and county level.

National Public Health Practice and Resource Center on Health Promotion for People with Disabilities Project (NCHPAD)

The Center on Disability at PHI is working in conjunction with 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.

Assessing the Community Guide

Funded by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the purpose of this project wass to assess the generalizability of recommended interventions in the Guide to Community Preventive Services to the population with disability. The intent was to maximize the capacity of states and communities to implement effective prevention and health promotion programs for people with disabilities.

The project, carried out by the Center on Disability at the Public Health Institute, reviewed disability literature for the 15 topic areas (Obesity, Nutrition, Physical Activity, Social Environment, Tobacco, Alcohol, Violence, Cancer, Oral Health, Vaccines, Diabetes, Mental Health, HIV/STIs/Pregnancy, Adolescent Health, and Motor Vehicles), 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 systematic review process.

Family Center on Technology and Disability

The Center on Disability conducted annual formative reviews and summative reviews of the activities of the federally funded Family Center on Technology and Disability (FCTD). The FCTD is a resource designed to support organizations and programs that work with families of children and youth with disabilities. The FCTD offered a range of information and services on the subject of assistive and instructional technologies, including a web site (www.fctd.info) with assistive/instructional technology resources of interest to families of children with disabilities, monthly newsletters, online discussions moderated by nationally recognized experts, a database of FCTD members which is comprised of more than 3,000 disability organizations, a resource review database with hundreds of reviews of AT resources, Family Information Guides, and other disability resources.

Center for Personal Assistance Services

Working with the University of California San Francisco, the Center on Disability at PHI conducted the training and dissemination for this federally funded Rehabilitation Research and Training Center on Personal Assistance Services (PAS). The Center on Disability also conducted research into PAS in emergency and disaster preparedness.

By promoting research, training, technical assistance and dissemination about personal assistance services, the mission of the Center for PAS was to ensure that people with self-care limitations can find information that will help them live independently. The goal was to improve the access, quality, and costs of PAS for people with limitations in activities of daily living to live independently, comfortably and safely in the community and to participate in society.