228215 State of ADA Implementation: A Needs Assessment of the Rocky Mountain Region

Tuesday, November 9, 2010 : 4:48 PM - 5:06 PM

Jana Burke, PhD , DBTAC Rocky Mountain ADA Center, Meeting the Challenge, Inc., Colorado Springs, CO
Jill Bezyak, PhD, CRC , Human Rehabilitative Services, University of Northern Colorado, Greeley, CO
Patricia Yeager, MS , DBTAC: Rocky Mountain ADA Center, Meeting the Challenge, Inc., Colorado Springs, CO
  
The DBTAC Rocky Mountain ADA Center conducted the first comprehensive regional needs assessment to discuss the impact of the ADA with goals to create equality of opportunity, full, integrated participated, independent living, and economic self sufficiency for people with disabilities. The assessment identified challenges and successes with ADA implementation, ascertained effective knowledge dissemination strategies, and discovered information gaps amongst organizations, professionals, and individuals with disabilities across the region. Interviews were conducted with building professionals, small business employers, health care providers, and nonprofit organizations offering basic services (housing, food, transportation, and child care). Interview topics included level of ADA awareness, how often industry deals with ADA issues, ADA topics dealt with on a regular basis, ADA implementation successes and challenges, tools needed to enhance informants' ability to work with ADA issues, strategies for getting information to informant industry/community, and appropriate formats for reaching informant states/industries. Surveys were launched across the region to collect information from organizations and professionals. Researchers will discuss the results of the first phase of the needs assessment project and highlight current obstacles and best practices in achieving ADA implementation. Discussion will highlight strategies for minimizing gaps in ADA implementation with attention paid to policy and practice changes needed to create more accessible communities across the country. Plans for future research and implications and strategies for public health professionals and people with disabilities will also be reviewed.

Learning Areas:
Diversity and culture
Ethics, professional and legal requirements
Program planning
Social and behavioral sciences

Learning Objectives:
1. Assess the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) implementation successes and challenges of organizations and professionals in the Rocky Mountain region 2. Examine ADA information needs of organizations and professionals in the Rocky Mountain region 3. Discuss implications of ADA implementation efforts on public health professionals and people with disabilities

Keywords: Policy/Policy Development, Community Participation

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I am the Project Director/Principal Investigator for the DBTAC Rocky Mountain ADA Center and have been working in the ADA implementation field for eight years. I was also the principal investigator for the DBTAC Needs Assessment project and was involved in each step of planning, execution, and evaluation.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

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