People With Disability

Providing for People with Disability: A Major Public Health Issue

While public health laws regulate the actions of employers to ensure equality, people with disabilities still face concealed and overt discrimination. [1] Formerly called the Americans with Disabilities Act, legislators have renamed the regulation as the Rehabilitation Act. The act prohibits employers from treating an employee of job candidate unfairly because they are afflicted with a disability. This also applied to temporary conditions that may no longer present in an individual. For example, a consumer may have undergone treatment for cancer that has since subsided.

According to law, employers must also make sufficient efforts to accommodate staff members that suffer from

Disabled employees might suffer from discrimination due to organizational policies. For instance, it is illegal to exclude disable employees from participating in federally funded initiatives. Employers cannot exclude workers from participating in company benefits, programs or services because a facility lacks sufficient accessibility. Additionally, employers must make sufficient accommodations so that disabled employees can perform the work duties they were hired to complete.

Employers must eliminate programmatic barriers for employees with disabilities such as inconvenient work hours and organizational policies that do not allow for sufficient care provider visits. Sometimes, barriers may develop because an employer simply avoids communication with disabled employees, thereby eliminating any chance of understanding their needs.

Social barriers represent another unfortunate form of discrimination against the disabled that can decrease individual performance. Many employers will not hire disabled workers. As an added barrier, many disabled adults over 25 are unlikely to complete academic training. Many disabled individuals live in poverty, and disabled children are more likely to suffer from

The United States government alone offers 67 varying definitions of what indicates disability. Certain agencies conform to strict classifications for services such as Social Security Disability Insurance and Supplemental Security Income. Others provide broad terminology to ensure the protection of individual rights such as the Americans with Disabilities Act for example.

Another law that defines disability is the Education of All Handicapped Children Act of 1974 that mandates free and appropriate education for all children with disabilities. Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 protects the disabled from discrimination so that they can lead self-sufficient lives. In 1990, the legislators established the Americans with Disabilities Act to ensure equality for disabled individuals. This law protected the disabled from barrier that inhibit the ability to lead a full