Factors influencing workplace accommodations requests among employees with visual impairments

Despite the protections afforded by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), workers who are deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) face workplace challenges that may require the aid of workplace resources and accommodations. Limited research has been conducted to understand the process of accommodation requests among DHH workers. This qualitative study examined barriers and facilitators to requesting accommodations among DHH workers. Fifty-nine DHH workers, recruited from organizations serving DHH workers across U.S., participated in the study. Participants' open-ended survey responses were analyzed and coded into themes representing barriers or facilitators to participants' decisions to request or withhold requests for accommodations. Facilitators to accommodation request include an employee's effective use of self-efficacy and self-advocacy; supportive work environments; and the presence of peers with disabilities. Barriers to accommodation requests include the anticipation of negative perception of stigmatization in the workplace; lack of knowledge related to accommodations and ADA; absence of workplace support; ineffectual workplace structure, policies, or procedures; concerns surrounding costs; and physical and access barriers in the workplace. To fulfill the workers' rights as guaranteed by the ADA, and to best serve the interests of the workplace, strategies are highlighted on how to assist DHH employees to take advantage of workplace accommodations with aims to promote job retention and success.

Individuals with multiple sclerosis (MS) face many workplace challenges. There are various laws that are intended to protect these individuals to have equal access to employment by requiring employers to provide workplace accommodations. To achieve benefits of workplace accommodations, individuals with MS need to disclose their disabilities and request accommodations. Limited research has examined psychosocial and demographic factors associated with requesting or not requesting workplace accommodations among people with MS. The current study aimed to fill this research gap. Eighty-six individuals with MS were recruited from agencies serving people with MS. Regarding psychosocial factors, findings show that requesters, in comparison with non-requesters, reported higher scores in self-efficacy (e.g., requesting accommodation and goal setting), outcome expectancy (e.g., perceived appropriateness and personal cost of accommodation requests), positive affect, knowledge of ADA and accommodations, job satisfaction, and a lower score in negative affect. Among demographic factors, only job tenure was significant. Rehabilitation professionals may need to assist employees with MS to foster psychosocial factors to facilitate individuals with MS, especially those with a short job tenure request accommodations and fully advantage of available workplace resources to enhance their job retention and satisfaction.

In a series of cases, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit has held that a person needing a multi-month leave from work to treat and to recover from an illness is categorically not disabled and thus not eligible for the employment protections of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). See, e.g., Severson v. Heartland Woodcraft, Inc., 872 F.3d 476, 479 (7th Cir. 2017). Specifically, the Seventh Circuit has erected a per se rule that anyone needing a temporary, multi-month leave of absence is never a qualified “individual with a disability” under the ADA, see 42 U.S.C. § 12111(8) — stopping the typical ADA analysis at its threshold and thus failing to account for the ADA’s flexible, case-by-case inquiry into whether a given workplace accommodation is “reasonable” and whether the accommodation would impose an undue hardship on the employer. See, e.g., U.S. Airways, Inc. v. Barnett, 535 U.S. 391, 405-06 (2002). A pending petition for a writ of certiorari in Golden v. Indianapolis Housing Agency, No. 17-1113 (U.S.), challenges the Seventh Circuit’s rule. Two national non-profit organizations — CancerLINC and the National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship — and three individual cancer survivors and advocates have filed the attached amicus brief in support of the Golden petition. The amicus brief explains in detail, through use of medical and other literature, why the Seventh Circuit’s rule would eliminate coverage for large numbers of people in treatment for cancer. (For instance, data show that the average length of absence from work for cancer treatment is about five months.) The brief also explains that treatment for other serious medical problems — for instance, certain kinds of heart and kidney disease — have similar recovery times, and so many other patients also would lose ADA coverage under the Seventh Circuit’s rule. The brief shows that the Seventh Circuit’s rule runs headlong into the ADA’s text and history. When Congress first considered the ADA, it heard about employment discrimination from cancer survivors and then indicated that cancer survivors were covered by the Act. After the ADA’s passage, however, some courts excluded cancer survivors from ADA coverage. Congress responded in 2008 with the ADA Amendments Act to clarify that the ADA covers cancer survivors. Congress expressly include people with impairments to “normal cell growth,” 42 U.S.C. § 12102(2)(B), and impairments “in remission,” id. § 12102(4)(D) — both references to cancer. As the amicus brief explains, if the Seventh Circuit’s rule remains in place, these important statutory changes would have little practical effect. Notably, the first-line drafters and researchers of this amicus brief are law students in Georgetown Law’s Appellate Courts Immersion Clinic, Cole Kroshus and Genevieve Mesch.

Law & Psychiatry: Congress Restores the Americans With Disabilities Act to Its Original Intent

Law & Psychiatry: Congress Restores the Americans With Disabilities Act to Its Original Intent.

PurposeResearch related to workplace accommodation requests for employees with mental illness is scarce, though evidence suggests that these individuals often fail to request accommodations even when needed. The authors' research study aimed to address these shortcomings by (1) assessing employees' knowledge of Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) laws and how this knowledge influences employees' perceived need for and requests of accommodations; (2) examining the relationship between employees' perceived need for accommodations and employees' workplace outcomes and (3) examining the relationship between perceived need for accommodations and employees' actual accommodation requests, as well as how stigma influences this relationship.Design/methodology/approachThe authors used two survey studies to investigate their research questions. Study 1 participants were recruited through Amazon's MTurk, and Study 2 participants were recruited through support groups for individuals diagnosed with mood disorders (i.e. depression and bipolar disorder).FindingsThe authors found significant gaps in both subjective and objective ADA-related knowledge among participants in their sample. The authors' Study 1 results also revealed an interaction between the perceived need for accommodations and accommodation requests in predicting job satisfaction and turnover intentions. When employees needed accommodations but did not request them, it resulted in worsened workplace outcomes. In Study 2, the authors aimed to identify barriers to requesting accommodations. The authors found that the relationship between perceived need for accommodations and actual accommodation requests was moderated by both public and self-stigma, thereby showing that stigma can impede individuals from requesting needed accommodations at work.Originality/valueThe authors' study sheds light on a population that has been relatively understudied in the workplace accommodations literature, namely those with mental illness. The authors first identify the perceived need for accommodations as an important factor in making accommodations requests at work, as prior work has failed to differentiate how the need for accommodations can vary across individuals. Next, the authors show how workplace outcomes (i.e. job satisfaction and turnover intentions) are negatively affected when employees need accommodations but do not request them. Finally, the authors demonstrate how both public stigma and self-stigma can reduce the likelihood that individuals request accommodations at work, even when needed.

Twenty-five years ago, on July 26, 1990, President George H. W. Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), a historic moment when the polity gave voice to the nation’s highest ideals. The ADA enshrined in law a social promise of equality and inclusion into all facets of life, while offering an inspiring model that much of the world would come to embrace. As a civil rights law coming in the wake of racial and gender equality legislation, the ADA has had profound symbolic meaning and real-world effects. Its promise of full participation in life stood in marked contrast to the oftenimpenetrable social and physical barriers that individuals with disabilities faced regarding inclusion in the workplace and public spaces. In sponsoring the ADA, Senator Edward Kennedy described life for persons with disabilities as an “American apartheid.”1 The ADA embodies the highest values of the United States—a compassionate nation with the vision to unleash the vast potential of persons with disabilities and to inspire global social change. Why should a medical journal like JAMA highlight the 25th anniversary of the passage of the ADA? Physicians care for many patients who have disabilities that are either preexisting or directly caused by injuries or disease processes. The ADA, moreover, directly affects health professionals and institutions by requiring nondiscriminatory treatment and reasonable accommodations for disabled patients. At the same time, physicians may develop disabilities and the statute affords them the same protection in the workplace as other workers. Importantly, medicine’s highest values are its compassion, a deep empathy for patients, and an abiding commitment to respect and protect human dignity. It is natural, then, that a leading medical journal like JAMA would champion a social project as important as the ADA. Accordingly, this theme issue of JAMA includes 3 Original Investigations2-4 that report novel research findings directly relevant to the ADA. The issue also features 6 scholarly Viewpoints5-10 that address multiple aspects of the ADA, ranging from landmark Supreme Court rulings, to aspects related to employment and genetics, to considerations for health professionals with disabilities. The marginalization of persons with disabilities is in one sense remarkable because somany individuals have been, or will become, disabled. At any given moment, one-fifth of all individuals in the United States live with 1 or more disability, and many, perhaps most, will experience some form of disability during the life course. Although disability can occur at all ages, it is8 timesmore likely inoldage;one-fourthofAmericans in their mid to late 60s have a severe disability, such as major impairments in mobility, vision, hearing, or the ability tocare for themselves.More thanhalfof those80yearsorolder have a severe disability and more than 70% experience multiple disabilities.11 As the population ages, the prevalence of disabilities will continue to increasewith enormous personal consequences as well as health and social costs.12 The ADA was bipartisan in ways that few pieces of social legislation are today, demonstrating that affording opportunities for flourishing lives of dignity should be beyond political contestation. Yet the ADA’s aim—a truly inclusive and just society—is still tobe fully realized.Whatbeganasasocialmovement and thena landmark legislative accomplishmenthasbecome, unfortunately, an object of political discord, with critiques of its costs to local government and businesses.13 Yet completing the ADA’s goal of full integration will unleash the creativity and entrepreneurship that persons with disability bring to their communities and to the nation.

The purpose of this study is to examine the prevalence of different workplace accommodation request strategies, the effectiveness of different request approaches, and situational and individual factors associated with different request strategies for individuals with disabilities. Common action plans of accommodation requests may vary depending on decisions about mentioning the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) (or not) and whether a formal (or informal) request is submitted, though past literature has focused primarily on formal accommodation requests made under the auspices of the ADA. Participants ( n = 408) were recruited from rehabilitation agencies and organizations serving people with disabilities in the United States. The results indicated that informal requests without mentioning the ADA were found most often, followed by formal requests while not mentioning the ADA, formal requests while mentioning the ADA, and informal requests while mentioning the ADA. The odds of acquiring the requested accommodation were significantly higher, relative to other strategies, for requests made informally without mentioning the ADA. A variety of individual attributes capable of discerning when participants chose one strategy over another were observed; these included self-efficacy and outcome expectancy, negative affect, and an array of situational and personal attributes. Implications for research and practice were discussed.

INTRODUCTIONPrior to the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) by Congress in 1990, persons with disabilities occupied a similar position in status to African Americans during the period of de jure segregation. Individuals with disabilities did not typically enjoy equal access to traditional American institutions and amenities such as public schools, transit services, hotel and restaurant accommodations, entertainment venues, and employment opportunities. Thus, discrimination and denial were common experiences for members of the disabled community. Comparable to the emancipation ideals of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas (1954), the ADA is aimed at dismantling discriminatory practices that deprive persons with disabilities of the freedoms afforded nondisabled citizens.The significance of the ADA is reflected in the sheer number of persons that it potentially protects. According to the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), there are 43 million persons in the United States with a chronic or permanent impairment resulting from disease, injury, or congenital malformation (Adams & Benson, 1990). In comparison to the percentage (8%) of White Americans with disabilities, a much larger percentage (14%) of African Americans have one or more disabilities (Bowe, 1992). Bowe reports that an African American with a disability is more likely to be female, to have less than a high school education, and to be unemployed. Only 18% of African American with disabilities were employed in 1990, and they earned less than $10,000 a year on the average (Asbury, Walker, Maholmes, Rackley, & White, 1991).Given these statistics, it can be suggested that African Americans with disabilities experience the most severe underemployment, unemployment, undereducation, and miseducation compared to other disability groups. Thus, the empowerment objectives of the ADA have particular importance for African Americans with disabilities. Establishing a mandate of reasonable accommodations is one means of achieving the empowerment objective. A goal of the ADA's reasonable accommodations provision is to greatly increase the number of students with disabilities in primary, secondary, and postsecondary education. Reasonable accommodations may include providing academic program accommodations such as signers in the classroom, providing- students with learning disabilities additional time to complete tests, and obtaining special equipment for those with hearing impairments (Miles, Russo, & Gordon, 1991).As Russo, Harris, and Sandidge (1994) note, Brown and its progeny spawned an era of equal educational opportunities for African Americans. It demolished the separate-but-equal doctrine of Jim Crow segregation and endeavored to ensure equity in student representation, teacher training, pupil-teacher ratios, and physical plant facilities through integration (Salamone, 1986; Tushnet, 1994). Subsequently, Brown's initial thrust for equal educational opportunities has been strengthened by the ADA and other laws against discrimination on the bases of race and disability.The unique status o being African American and having a disability places one in the position of benefitting directly from both Brown and the ADA. An abundance of information exists chronicling the solidification of Brown, defining its meaning for African Americans, and describing implementation strategies. However, there is a paucity of literature examining how the ADA can improve the educational opportunities of African Americans with disabilities. Thus, since the ADA is the most sweeping antidiscrimination legislation since the Civil Rights Act of 1964, it is especially crucial for educators and human service professionals to be familiar with how the mandates of the ADA can be utilized to achieve educational equity and to improve professional preparation for African Americans with disabilities.The purpose of this article is threefold. …

This study examined use of the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) among persons with rheumatic diseases and assessed which factors were associated with use. A mail survey was conducted among adult patients recruited from 21 rheumatology practices. Subjects answered questions about their inclination to use the ADA in the community or at work and about factors thought to be associated with use. The outcome was stage of behavior change, the behavior being use of the ADA. Ordinal logistic regression identified independent correlates of the outcome. Of 631 subjects, 47% experienced an ADA-resolvable barrier to community activity, and 63% of 183 employed subjects needed a job accommodation or experienced health discrimination. However, only 7% of the full sample and 10% of the employed subgroup had used the ADA. Factors associated with use were detailed knowledge, perception of being disabled, skill in requesting use, and health professional use suggestion. Although many persons with rheumatic diseases experience community barriers or need workplace accommodations, they currently underutilize the ADA. Use could be enhanced by health professional suggestion and referral or by community programs designed to address the factors identified.

COVID-19 Reveals Longstanding Health Inequities and Discrimination Against Americans With Disabilities.

For women with disabilities, obtaining reproductive health care services from physicians is not always easily accomplished. There are non-physical barriers such as: 1) physicians' attitudes that dehumanize women with disabilities, and treat them as asexual: 2) women with disabilities' lack of knowledge about sexuality and reproduction; and 3) physicians' unfamiliarity in treating women with disabilities. There are physical and architectural barriers as well, such as: 1) physicians' offices that are inaccessible; and 2) patients' difficulties in communicating with their physicians if they have a visual or hearing impairment. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was passed by Congress in 1990, and this statute generally and specifically prohibits physicians, both in their private offices and in state and locally-funded health care clinics, from engaging in certain actions that may prevent women with disabilities from obtaining reproductive health care services. Physicians cannot deny services, cannot give unequal treatment, and cannot give separate treatment to women with disabilities who are covered under the Act. The ADA encourages physicians to integrate patients with disabilities with patients without disabilities. Specifically, the ADA prohibits: 1) eligibility criteria that screen out patients with disabilities; 2) not modifying policies, practices, and procedures to accommodate the needs of women with disabilities; 3) not using auxiliary aids and services or an alternative means of communication with patients with disabilities, unless it is an undue burden; and 4) not removing architectural and communication barriers that are structural in nature, if readily achievable. For violations of the ADA, complaint procedures are listed in this article, as well as sources of information from which women with disabilities and others can obtain more knowledge about the ADA.

Persons with disabilities

Mental illness and disability affect millions of individuals yearly in the U.S. The most important legislation protecting the mentally disabled in the workplace in the U.S. over the last half century has been the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and its associated legislation and guidance. Although the employee should first request reasonable accommodation with the employer, evaluation by a mental health professional is one of the initial steps for individuals who report significant psychiatric symptoms that are impairing their functioning at work in the U.S.. Important regulations and laws in the United States that are essential knowledge to performing thorough mental disability evaluations include the ADA and Americans with Disabilities Act Amendments Act of 2008 (ADAAA), Social Security Disability, Workers' Compensation, and private disability insurance. These laws differ in applicability and in their definitions of disability. Social Security Disability is applicable to workers who have long-term impairments regardless of whether the disability arose on or off the job, while Worker's Compensation is specific to persons with work-related illness and injuries that occur on the job (Reno, Williams, & Sengupta, ). The Social Security definition of a disabled person is a person who is not "able to engage in any substantial gainful activity because of a medically-determinable physical or mental impairment(s): that is expected to result in death, or that has lasted or is expected to last for a continuous period of at least 12 months" (Social Security Red Book, ). However, the Workers' Compensation definition of what illnesses/injuries are compensated, the level of benefits and who provides the insurance are state-specific. Due to these differences in definition of disability, it is essential for the mental health professional performing a mental disability evaluation to clarify with the referral source or referring agency which legislation and laws they feel are directly relevant to the specific situation before starting the evaluation. While the ADA and ADA Amendments Act of 2008 have had the greatest impact on the improvement of conditions for mentally disabled individuals in employment over the last 25 years, they have also been the most challenging by far for mental health experts to understand and apply (Cook, ). Interestingly, the ADA has had a much quicker effect on improving access to services for the medically disabled as compared with the mentally disabled in the U.S. (Ullman, Johnsen, Moss, & Burris, ). This article reviews the history and status of current ADA- and ADAAA-related law and employment as well as Canadian disability law and global progress towards universal disability legislation as evidenced by the 2006 Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

This study assessed compliance with the public accommodations provisions (Title III) of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Title III of the ADA requires the removal of physical, procedural, and attitudinal barriers that prohibit people with disabilities from entering public establishments and accessing their goods and services. The physical accessibility of 90 establishments located in three ethnic minority communities was assessed. Following each assessment, ADA information and feedback were presented to business owners and managers in either English or Spanish. Results revealed that 23 (25.6%) were fully accessible, 43 (47.8%) were accessible with minor assistance, and 24 (26.7%) were inaccessible with minor assistance. Establishments identified as for-profit tended to be more accessible than those identified as not-for-profit. Overall, findings indicate that much work remains to improve the ADA compliance of places open to the public.