Connective Issues: A UMass Chan diversity and inclusion blog

Since becoming a priority of many organizations, the increased focus on diversity, equity and inclusion work has led to intensified commitments to recruiting populations underrepresented in workforces like medicine and to accountability measures that ensure implementation. 

While organizations are becoming better due to their attention to this work, many struggle with what full inclusion of people with disabilities looks like and how it fits into the larger conversation. A person with a disability is anyone who has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities; has a history or record of such an impairment; or is perceived by others as having such an impairment, according to ADA.gov.

People with disabilities have always been advocates for their needs, from inclusion pioneers Judith Heumann and Lex Frieden, whose activism helped facilitate the passing of the Americans with Disabilities Act, to everyday citizens who laid down in the streets to bring attention to the inaccessibility of public transportation. But in every case, making change requires allyship in conjunction with frontline work to be sustained and maintained.  

This academic year, the Diversity and Inclusion Office will address the ways diversity, equity and inclusion and disability can positively intersect by focusing its speaker series, Centering the Margins, on the theme, “Advancing Accessibility and Inclusion in Health Care for People with Disabilities.” The series will kick off on Sept. 25 at noon online, with the topic “Going beyond the basics: Successful communication between health care professionals and patients who are deaf, late deafened or hard of hearing.” Members of the UMass Chan community are encouraged to attend.  

The premise of the series is that people with mental, cognitive and physical disabilities often face significant barriers in accessing quality health care. These barriers can include inaccessible facilities, lack of trained health care providers and inadequate communication tools. By focusing on the needs of people with disabilities, the UMass Chan community can create a more inclusive health care system that provides equitable access to quality care. 

Through presentations by experts versed in the areas of diversity, equity and inclusion as well as disability and health care, the series hopes to ask how individuals with disabilities encounter health care and educational systems differently than others and what barriers they experience.  

The hope is that attendees leave the monthly conversations with this systemic framework outlook and commit to dismantling the oppression found in them.