Public Health Perspectives on Disability Donald J. Lollar, Elena Andresen, editors Traditionally, the public health viewpoint on disability was geared toward primary prevention of disabling conditions or events. More recently, with the movement for disability rights and the emergence of disability studies, the challenge to the field has been to promote positive health outcomes in this underserved community. Such a change in public health culture must start at the educational level, yet training programs have generally been slow in integrating this perspective—with its potential for enriching the field—into their curricula. Public Health Perspectives on Disability meets this challenge with an educational framework for rethinking disability in public health study and practice, and for attaining the competencies that should accompany this knowledge. This reference balances history and epidemiology, scientific advances, advocacy and policy issues, real-world insights, and progressive recommendations, suiting it especially to disability-focused courses, or to add disability-related content to existing public health programs. Each chapter applies awareness and understanding of disabled persons’ experience to one of the core curriculum areas, including: • Health services administration. • Environmental health science and occupational health. • Health law and ethics. • The school as physical setting. • Maternal, child, and family health. • Disasters and disability. In Public Health Perspectives on Disability, faculty, researchers, administrators, and students in graduate schools of public health throughout the U.S. will find a worthy classroom text and a robust source of welcome—and much needed—change.
Public Health Perspectives on Disability
Donald J. Lollar Elena M. Andresen ●
Editors
Public Health Perspectives on Disability Epidemiology to Ethics and Beyond
Editors Donald J. Lollar Oregon Health and Science University Portland, OR USA
[email protected]
Elena M. Andresen University of Florida Gainesville, FL USA
[email protected]
ISBN 978-1-4419-7340-5 e-ISBN 978-1-4419-7341-2 DOI 10.1007/978-1-4419-7341-2 Springer New York Dordrecht Heidelberg London © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2011 All rights reserved. This work may not be translated or copied in whole or in part without the written permission of the publisher (Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, 233 Spring Street, New York, NY 10013, USA), except for brief excerpts in connection with reviews or scholarly analysis. Use in connection with any form of information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed is forbidden. The use in this publication of trade names, trademarks, service marks, and similar terms, even if they are not identified as such, is not to be taken as an expression of opinion as to whether or not they are subject to proprietary rights. Printed on acid-free paper Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com)
Dedication
This volume would not have come to be except for the vision and will of Allan Meyers. Dr. Meyers taught for numerous years at the School of Public Health at Boston University. His untimely death on Memorial Day weekend in 2001 while enjoying his hobby, mountain biking, came just as the planning stages for this book project were in full swing. We had talked often about the need to have disability included in the public health curricula across the country, and that public health could have a