UIC-based national research center receives $2.5 million grant
Depending on where they live in the U.S., people with disabilities are three or more times more likely to live in poverty than people without disabilities.
This information, and more, is available from ADA PARC (the Americans with Disabilities Act Participation Action Research Consortium), a UIC-based national research center that just received a new $2.5 million grant from the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research.
The funding will be used to gather and analyze new data about the participation disparities experienced by people with disabilities; improve and expand the existing website for disseminating that data; and train people from diverse disability communities to use the information as advocates in talking with policymakers.
The participatory research will be done in collaboration with the 10 Americans with Disabilities Act centers that represent all states and territories in the U.S., as well as the ADA Knowledge Translation Center.
“As major civil rights legislation, the ADA has had an impact over time. But we're able to show that there are still significant disparities that need to be addressed at the national, state and city level,” said Joy Hammel, professor of OT, DHD and RS, who is co-principal investigator with Lex Frieden, disability policy and advocate researcher at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston.
The project focuses on disparities for people with disabilities in the three areas related to the ADA: community living, community participation and economic equity.
Through focus groups, town halls and surveys, ADA PARC centers will conduct participatory action research “to check that we've got our finger on the pulse of what the biggest issues are in the disability community that they're facing right now,” Hammel said.