Allen N. Lewis

Disability disparities: A beginning model

This paper presents a model of disability disparities. Though the concept of health disparities is discussed in the health care literature, there is no such model that explicitly addresses disparities in the disability literature. Therefore, this model begins to fill a void in the disability literature. Part of the value of such a model is that it represents an attempt to address the question of why cultural competency is important in the disability arena at this point in the 21st century. The urgency in addressing cultural competency at this time in history is supported by understanding the multiple accountability demands on rehabilitation and disability providers these days, e.g., increasing diversification of the United States population, that render providing effective services to everyone a clear mandate. The author provides a working definition of disability disparity. The disability disparity model is described in terms of its five-domain continuum as well as its macro- and micro-level aspects that are designed to both promote clarity of the concept for researchers and offer practitioners ideas on how to explore the existence of disability disparities in working with specific service recipients. Limitations and strengths of the model are discussed along with suggested next steps in model validation.

Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Employment Outcomes for Persons With Traumatic Brain Injury: A Longitudinal Investigation 1-5 Years After Injury

To determine whether differences exist in employment rates between whites, blacks, and Hispanics with traumatic brain injury (TBI) at 1, 2, or 5 years after injury; to determine whether changes occur in postinjury employment rates over time for whites, blacks, and Hispanics; and to determine whether changes in postinjury employment rates over time are different for whites, blacks, and Hispanics.

Race, Ethnicity, and Employment Outcomes 1, 5, and 10 Years After Spinal Cord Injury: A Longitudinal Analysis

(1) To compare the odds of competitive employment versus not competitive employment among a group of white, African American, and Hispanic persons with spinal cord injury (SCI) at 1, 5, and 10 years after injury; (2) to examine the changes in the odds of competitive employment versus not competitive employment over time within each racial/ethnic group, and (3) to compare the changes in the odds of competitive employment versus not competitive employment over time between the racial/ethnic groups.

Integrating cultural competency in rehabilitation curricula in the new millennium: Keeping it simple

Pre-service rehabilitation education programmes in the United States still prepare future professionals in cultural competency primarily through one required course in multicultural counselling, though there is an expectation that such content will be woven into all graduate rehabilitation coursework. These authors believe that there is still a need in these dawning years of the 21st century to offer more guidance to rehabilitation educators on how to integrate cultural competency into each course at the graduate level. This discussion reviews the literature to date on cultural competency within rehabilitation education in the United States, then concludes by proposing a four-strategy framework for use by rehabilitation educators that is simple, comprehensive, multi-dimensional (i.e., it addresses faculty awareness, student coursework, the student clinical experience and lifelong learning for the student after exiting the pre-service educational programme), and that offers clear guiding parameters without being overly prescriptive.

Modern Psychometric Methodology: Applications of Item Response Theory

Item response theory (IRT) methodology is introduced as a tool for improving assessment instruments used with people who have disabilities. Need for this approach in rehabilitation is emphasized; differences between IRT and classical test theory are clarified. Concepts essential to understanding IRT are defined, necessary data assumptions are identified, and specific data analysis techniques, using software such as TESTFACT and BILOG, are described. An example of IRT analysis applied to a subtest of the General Aptitude Test Battery (GATB) administered to people who have diverse disabilities is provided. Future potential uses of this approach in rehabilitation are outlined.

Hate Crimes and Disability in America

A hate crime is a criminal offense committed against person or property that is motivated, in whole or in part, by the offenders prejudice. Hate crimes are sometimes termed “bias-motivated crimes.” The theoretical bases for bias motivation and their implications for hate crimes against Americans with disabilities are outlined. The history of the Hate Crime Statistics Act (1990) and its eventual extension to Americans with disabilities are also reviewed. Five years of aggregate data from FBI Hate Crimes Statistics reports are analyzed to compare and contrast the hate crimes experience of Americans with disabilities with that of other targeted groups based on race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and religion. Reports of hate crimes from persons with disabilities are minute as compared to those of any other group. The nature and location of hate crimes are also analyzed. Finally, the findings and their implications for such issues as alternative manifestations of prejudice, underreporting of violent crimes, cross-disability support for hate crime prevention, rehabilitation counseling practice, and future research directions are discussed.

Multicultural Challenges in Employment of People with Disabilities

Welcome to this special issue of the Journal of Vocational Rehabilitation. This special issue focuses on “multicultural challenges in employment of people with disabilities”. You will note from our focus the prominence of the concepts of culture and employment. It is difficult to imagine that the importance of these two concepts could ever be greater than they are currently during these dawning years of the new millennium. As this inaugural decade of the 21st century draws to a close, employment is a major concern amid what has been termed by some as the worst economic downturn since the depression of 1929. Culture is also increasingly important, especially as it relates to ethnicity when one considers the population increases by group in our current decade, i.e., the ten years between 2000 and 2010 according to United States Census Bureau. During this decade, the European-American population is increasing 7%, African Americans 14%, Asian Americans 33%, and Latino Americans 34%. These numbers make clear why by the year 2050 more than 50% of the United States population will be non-European American. Prior to the beginning of this new century, Section 21 of the Rehabilitation Act Amendments of 1992 provided the legislative impetus for the public vocational rehabilitation system to strive to more effectively serve culturally diverse and traditionally underserved populations. Today, the vocational rehabilitation system in the United States (and perhaps other countries) faces a fundamental mandate to “do more with less”, within a context of limited resources concomitant with increasing demands for services, and resulting in increased pressure toward accountability. Given this mandate, we must find ways to be effective with every population that receives services in our systems. This is the case because we can no longer afford to deliver ineffective services to anyone because then we would be guilty of wasting precious resources. Fulfilling the mandate to serve all individuals effectively raises the bar, and doing so requires that we know how to work successfully with every individual receiving services within an increasingly diverse landscape. In this issue, we have assembled a cross-section of some of the important, timely and emerging research discussions that are underway today related to employment of individuals with disabilities from culturally diverse backgrounds. Specifically, we have manuscripts that address: (1) the engagement of ethnically diverse individuals with disabilities in the vocational rehabilitation system, (2) application of the behavioral model of service utilization to predict factors associated with vocational rehabilitation use among Latino men with HIV/AIDS, (3) predicting outcomes among women of color with psychiatric disabilities, (4) evaluation and follow-up of supported employment initiatives in Spain from 1995 to 2008, (5) employment and vocational rehabilitation experiences among Latinos with different patterns of acculturation, and (6) employment outcomes after traumatic brain injury among racial and ethnic minority groups. In a general sense, employment is an avenue to financial self-sufficiency and a respectable quality of life for all Americans. Similarly, employment is still a fundamental outcome needed among individuals with disabilities that correlates positively with optimal