Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene | 2021
Accommodating workers with disabilities in the post-Covid world
Abstract
The Covid-19 pandemic has upended the way we work, raising challenges but also rapidly accelerating the adoption of digital technologies to facilitate remote work. Although remote work poses certain ergonomic challenges, it also offers much needed opportunities to accommodate workers with disabilities. In 2019, over 30 million working age adults were living with a disability, yet less than 20% of them were employed, and their unemployment rate has averaged twice that of adults without disability for the last decade (Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), U.S. Department of Labor, The Economics Daily 2020). Since the pandemic, unemployment for disabled workers increased by 60% compared to 44% for workers without disabilities (Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), U.S. Department of Labor 2021). Disabled workers can suffer from a “first out, last back” phenomenon during downsizing and face a more challenging path back to employment, as they will compete in the labor market with nondisabled workers (Newman 2021). Moreover, the number of workers living with permanent physical or intellectual disabilities requiring reasonable accommodation to successfully maintain employment is reportedly increasing, making effective workplace accommodations essential to support and retain disabled workers (Zablotsky et al. 2019). Industrial hygienists, who have traditionally facilitated workplace accommodations for temporary disabilities following an injury (return to work), now have an opportunity and an obligation to rethink our services to be more inclusive and help maintain productive and stable employment for this vulnerable population. Here, we highlight technological advances, utilized during the pandemic to facilitate work from home, that can be implemented post-pandemic as part of a strategy to increase accessibility for a range of disabilities. We review employer requirements under U.S. laws and identify simple practices to streamline compliance, with a focus on technology tools to expand accessibility in instructional media and digital content. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) defines an individual with a disability as “a person who has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities, a person who has a history or record of such an impairment, or a person who is perceived by others as having such an impairment” (ADA 2020). The ADA does not specifically name all the impairments that are covered. While mobility limitations and sensory impairments may be recognizable in the workplace through the presence of assistive technology or aids, other disabilities may not be visible. Hidden disabilities include a wide range of physical, cognitive, and psychological conditions that may not have obvious manifestations, including chronic disease (diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis) and intellectual disabilities. Intellectual disabilities involve problems with intellectual functions (learning, problem solving, judgment) and adaptive functions (communication, independent living) (Tass e 2016). Learning disabilities refers to a group of information-processing problems that can manifest as difficulties with language or math as well as struggles with cognitive functions such as attention, executive function and abstract reasoning (LDA 2021). Disabilities and their symptoms typically change over an employee’s lifespan and career, increasing with age (Bonaccio et al. 2020). Employment data suggests that as disabled workers age, they are less likely to be working