Skip to main content

Main menu

  • Home
  • Content
    • Current issue
    • Past issues
    • Healthy You
    • Job listings
    • Q&As
    • Special sections
  • Multimedia
    • Quiz
    • Podcasts
    • Videos
    • App
  • FAQs
    • Advertising
    • Subscriptions
    • For APHA members
    • Internships
    • Change of address
  • About
    • About The Nation's Health
    • Submissions
    • Permissions
    • Purchase articles
    • Join APHA
  • Contact us
    • Feedback
  • APHA
    • AJPH
    • NPHW

User menu

  • My alerts

Search

  • Advanced search
The Nation's Health
  • APHA
    • AJPH
    • NPHW
  • My alerts
The Nation's Health

Advanced Search

  • Home
  • Content
    • Current issue
    • Past issues
    • Healthy You
    • Job listings
    • Q&As
    • Special sections
  • Multimedia
    • Quiz
    • Podcasts
    • Videos
    • App
  • FAQs
    • Advertising
    • Subscriptions
    • For APHA members
    • Internships
    • Change of address
  • About
    • About The Nation's Health
    • Submissions
    • Permissions
    • Purchase articles
    • Join APHA
  • Contact us
    • Feedback
  • Follow The Nation's Health on Twitter
  • Follow APHA on Twitter
  • Visit APHA on Facebook
  • Follow APHA on Youtube
  • Follow APHA on Instagram
  • Follow The Nation's Health RSS feeds
NewsSections

Disability Section celebrates progress, works to impact, influence change

Aaron Warnick
The Nation's Health October 2020, 50 (8) 16;
Aaron Warnick
  • Search for this author on this site
Figure1

The Disability Section works to ensure that people with disabilities are able to pursue the opportunities they are interested in.

Photo by Anna Stills, courtesy iStockphoto

APHA’s Disability Section has worked for decades to improve access for people with disabilities, influence the wider public health field and grow the next cohort of leaders in the civil rights movement.

This year, the Section is marking the 30-year anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which became law on July 26, 1990.

The historic law bans discrimination on the basis of disability in schools, jobs, transportation, and public and private places used by the general public. The law has removed barriers for millions of Americans, both physical and otherwise: Curb cuts, wheelchair ramps, pedestrian signals and even web accessibility have been influenced by the ADA.

But despite those successes, there is still work to be done. Legal challenges to the law are a regular occurrence, including those from people who want more protections for people with disabilities. On top of rule changes, Disability Section members want to see cultural changes, said Meg Traci, PhD, chair of the Disability Section.

“There are so many things that have to be done by prompting — or even shouting — but we want the idea of inclusion and access to be done in a way that is automatic,” Traci told The Nation’s Health. “Employment opportunities, accessibility, housing all need to radically change so that they’re equitable by default.”

The three decades of progress under the ADA overlap with the history of the APHA Disability Section, which was created 32 years ago. During its years of work, the group has created an awards program to recognize leaders in disability and health, collaborated to develop the Disability and Health Journal, authored APHA policy statements on disability issues and more.

One of the Section’s key roles is to help ensure access for people with disabilities at APHA’s Annual Meeting. The Section advises APHA’s conventions team, providing recommendations and feedback.

Last year, the Section worked to develop accessibility guidelines for Annual Meeting presenters. The guidelines, which are available on the APHA website, share tips to ensure that both oral and poster presentations can be accessed by all attendees. For example, during oral presentations, slides that have graphics should be described by speakers, the guidelines note.

“Whether it’s the Annual Meeting or an office space, we want people to remember to ask, ‘How can we include you?’” Section member Mackenzie Jones, MPH, CHES, told The Nation’s Health. “If you approach these things with the mindset of welcoming everyone, that needs to involve planning for access and accommodations.”

Jones is one of the Section members who works with APHA to support accessibility at the Annual Meeting, including this year’s event, which will be held Oct. 24-28. As the meeting will be completely online, there are both opportunities and new challenges, she said.

While the virtual conference will remove barriers for many members with mobility disabilities, work is underway to make sure that members with sensory disabilities are able to participate. Some steps include standardizing slideshow presentations so they are easier for text-to-speech readers to recognize and working with presenters to accommodate spoken presentations that will need to be translated by an ASL interpreter.

“We have to strike the balance of making things accessible and what is possible,” said Jones, who is the Section’s accessibility liaison. “There have not been many virtual meetings that have existed on this scale, so there is a lot of uncertainty.”

Over the three decades that the ADA and the APHA Section have been in existence, many issues have changed. One that has come to the forefront due to COVID-19 is the ability to telework, and people with disabilities may need accommodations to do so.

“Everyone is learning how to navigate this new reality, and we can learn these things together so that we can do everything better,” Traci said. “We have a real opportunity to integrate access into everything we do.”

For more information on the Section, visit bit.ly/disabilitysection.

  • Copyright The Nation’s Health, American Public Health Association
View Preview
PreviousNext
Back to top

In this issue

The Nation's Health: 50 (8)
The Nation's Health
Vol. 50, Issue 8
October 2020
  • Table of Contents
  • Table of Contents (PDF)
  • Index by author
  • Complete Issue (PDF)

Healthy You

Quiz

Print
Article Alerts
Sign In to Email Alerts with your Email Address
Email Article
We do not capture any email addresses.
Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
Disability Section celebrates progress, works to impact, influence change
(Your Name) has sent you a message from The Nation's Health
(Your Name) thought you would like to see this item on The Nation's Health website.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Citation Tools
Disability Section celebrates progress, works to impact, influence change
Aaron Warnick
The Nation's Health October 2020, 50 (8) 16;

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero
Share
Disability Section celebrates progress, works to impact, influence change
Aaron Warnick
The Nation's Health October 2020, 50 (8) 16;
del.icio.us logo Digg logo Reddit logo Twitter logo CiteULike logo Facebook logo Google logo Mendeley logo
Tweet Widget Facebook Like LinkedIn logo

Jump to section

  • Top

More in this TOC Section

  • Member groups In Brief
  • Nursing Section sparks discussion on Black maternal disparities in US
  • Member groups present health awards during APHA’s 2020 Annual Meeting
Show more Sections

Subjects

  • Human Rights
  • Access to Care

Popular features

  • Healthy You
  • Special sections
  • Q&As
  • Quiz
  • Podcasts

FAQs

  • Advertising
  • Subscriptions
  • For APHA members
  • Submissions
  • Change of address

APHA

  • Join APHA
  • Annual Meeting
  • NPHW
  • AJPH
  • Get Ready
  • Contact APHA
  • Privacy policy

© 2021 The Nation's Health

Powered by HighWire