Rehabilitation Research and Training Center (RRTC) on Employment Among Transition-Age Youth with Disabilities

BackgroundAmong working-age people in the United States, approximately 35 percent of people with disabilities were employed in 2022. This percentage is significantly lower than the rate of 74 percent for people without disabilities (National Trends in Disability Employment, 2023; Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2023). Among people with disabilities, only 26 percent of those with ambulatory disabilities are employed. This rate of employment among people with ambulatory disabilities, a subgroup of people with physical disabilities, is significantly lower than that experienced by people with hearing (55%), vision (48%), or cognitive disabilities (34%) (Paul et al., 2023). NIDILRR has supported a wide range of research and development projects to generate knowledge that can be used to improve employment experiences and outcomes among people with physical disabilities. Projects currently funded by NIDILRR include explorations of individual- and job-related factors related to use of job accommodations among people with physical disabilities (Su et al., 2022; Wong et al., 2021), and studies to explore the demographic, educational, and injury-related characteristics associated with employment and earnings among people with spinal cord injury (Krause et al., 2020). One study examined rate of return (ROR) models for people with physical disabilities who received vocational rehabilitation (VR) services (Dean et al. 2018). A major finding of this project was that VR services for people with physical disabilities yielded a 169 percent ROR annually, and this success was substantial when compared to people with other types of disabilities. NIDILRR-funded employment research has also examined the relationship between employers’ inclusion practices and employment of people with disabilities (Chan et al., 2020). Each of these NIDILRR-funded projects and many others have generated knowledge that serves as a foundation for the development and testing of evidence-based practices, services and interventions to support improved employment outcomes among people with physical disabilities.      The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on employment among people with physical disabilities was significant in many ways. People with physical disabilities encountered challenges obtaining or maintaining employment in a safe workplace during the pandemic-related economic recession (Wong et al, 2022). People with physical disabilities who are younger, single, and Hispanic were more likely to experience employment challenges and negative outcomes related to the pandemic (Wong et al, 2022). At the same time, the pandemic led employers to expand their use of a variety of flexible work arrangements, which can be beneficial to people with disabilities (Kessler Foundation, 2022). Ongoing research is needed to better understand these opportunities and challenges, and also to generate knowledge about the emerging needs, experiences, and outcomes of people with physical disabilities who are experiencing symptoms related to Long-COVID. In accordance with NIDILRR’s Long Range Plan for Fiscal Years 2018-2023 (the Plan), NIDILRR seeks to build on these investments and available knowledge by supporting innovative and well-designed research, training, technical assistance, and dissemination activities to be conducted by a Rehabilitation Research and Training Center on Employment Among People with Physical Disabilities.  References:Bureau of Labor Statistics (2023). Persons with a disability: labor force characteristics – 2022. https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/disabl.pdf.Chan, F., Tansey, T. N., Iwanaga, K., Bezyak, J., Wehman, P., Phillips, B. N., ... & Anderson, C. (2021). Company characteristics, disability inclusion practices, and employment of people with disabilities in the post COVID-19 job economy: A cross sectional survey study. Journal of Occupational Rehabilitation, 31, 463-473. doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10926-020-09941-8. Dean, D., Schmidt, R., Pepper, J., & Stern, S. (2018). The effects of vocational rehabilitation for people with physical disabilities. Journal of Human Capital, 12(1), 1-37. doi: https://doi.org/10.1086/696098.Kessler Foundation (2022). Report of main findings from Kessler foundation 2022 National Employment and Disability Survey: supervisor perspectives. East Hanover, NJ. https://kesslerfoundation.org/sites/default/files/2022-12/KFNEDS-SP.pdf…, J. S., Dismuke-Greer, C. E., Jarnecke, M., & Reed, K. S. (2020). Differential odds of employment and estimation of earnings among those with spinal cord injury. Rehabilitation Counseling Bulletin, 63(2), 67-78.National Trends in Disability Employment (nTIDE) (2023). People with disabilities reached new employment levels in 2022, outperforming their peers without disabilities. https://kesslerfoundation.org/press-release/people-disabilities-reached…, S., Rogers, S., Bach, S., Houtenville, A. (2023). Annual Disability Statistics Compendium: 2023 (Tables 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, 3.4, 3.5, and 3.6). Durham, NH: University of New Hampshire, Institute on Disability. Note: Authors’ calculations using the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey, Public Use Microdata Sample, 2021, which is subject to sampling variation. Su, H., Wong, J., Kudla, A., Park, M., Trierweiler, R., Capraro, P., ... & Heinemann, A. W. (2022). Disability Phenotypes and Job Accommodations Utilization Among People with Physical Disability. Journal of Occupational Rehabilitation, 1-10 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10926-022-10078-z. Wong, J., Ezeife, N., Kudla, A., Crown, D., Trierweiler, R., Capraro, P., ... & Heinemann, A. W. (2022). Employment Consequences of COVID-19 for People with Disabilities and Employers. Journal of Occupational Rehabilitation, 32, 464–4.. doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10926-021-10012-9.Wong, J., Kallish, N., Crown, D., Capraro, P., Trierweiler, R., Wafford, Q. E., ... & Heinemann, A. W. (2021). Job accommodations, return to work and job retention of people with physical disabilities: a systematic review. Journal of Occupational Rehabilitation, 31, 474-490. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10926-020-09954-3.Priority:The Administrator for the Administration on Community Living(ACL) establishes a priority for an RRTC on Employment among People with Physical Disabilities. The RRTC must contribute to maximizing the employment outcomes of people with physical disabilities by:(a) Conducting research activities in one or more of the following priority areas, focusing on people with physical disabilities as a group or on people in specific disability or demographic subpopulations of people with physical disabilities:(i) Technology to improve employment outcomes among people with physical disabilities.(ii) Individual and environmental factors associated with improved employment outcomes among people with physical disabilities.(iii) Interventions that contribute to improved employment outcomes among people with physical disabilities. Interventions include any strategy, practice, program, policy, or tool that, when implemented as intended contributes to improvements in outcomes for people with physical disabilities.(iv) Effects of employer or government practices, policies, and programs on employment outcomes among people with physical disabilities.(v) Practices and policies that contribute to improved employment outcomes among transition-aged youth and young adults with physical disabilities.(vi) Vocational Rehabilitation practices that contribute to improved employment outcomes among people with physical disabilities.(vii) COVID or Long-COVID experiences of people with physical disabilities, and the relationship between those experiences and employment outcomes.(b) Focusing its research on one or more specific stages of research. If the RRTC is to conduct research that can be categorized under more than one of the research stages, or research that progresses from one stage to another, those stages must be clearly specified. This RRTC must conduct at least one research study at the intervention efficacy or scale-up evaluation stage of research. NIDILRR’s stages of research and their definitions are provided in this notice.(c) Demonstrating, in its original application, that people with physical disabilities from racial and ethnic minority backgrounds will be included in study samples in sufficient numbers to generate knowledge and products that are relevant to the racial and ethnic diversity of the population of people with physical disabilities being studied. The RRTC must describe and justify, in its original application, the planned racial and ethnic distribution of people with physical disabilities who will participate in the proposed research activities. (d) Serving as a national resource center related to the employment of people with physical disabilities by conducting knowledge translation activities that include, but are not limited to:(i) Providing information and technical assistance to service providers, people with physical disabilities and their representatives, and other key stakeholders(ii) Providing training, including graduate, pre-service, and in-service training, to rehabilitation providers and other disability service providers, to facilitate more effective delivery of employment services and supports to people with physical disabilities. This training may be provided through conferences, workshops, public education programs, in-service training programs, and similar activities.(iii) Disseminating research based information and materials related to the employment of people with physical disabilities.(e) Involving people with physical disabilities and members of other key stakeholder groups in the activities conducted under paragraph (a) – (d) to maximize the relevance and usability of the new knowledge and products generated and distributed by the RRTC. Such involvement is consistent with Executive Order 14091, Section 5: Delivering Equitable Outcomes in Partnership with Underserved Communities.  Definitions - Stages of Research: Exploration and discovery means the stage of research that generates hypotheses or theories through new and refined analyses of data, producing observational findings and creating other sources of research-based information.  This research stage may include identifying or describing the barriers to and facilitators of improved outcomes of individuals with disabilities, as well as identifying or describing existing practices, programs, or policies that are associated with important aspects of the lives of individuals with disabilities.  Results achieved under this stage of research may inform the development of interventions or lead to evaluations of interventions or policies.  The results of the exploration and discovery stage of research may also be used to inform decisions or priorities.Intervention development means the stage of research that focuses on generating and testing interventions that have the potential to improve outcomes for individuals with disabilities.  Intervention development involves determining the active components of possible interventions, developing measures that would be required to illustrate outcomes, specifying target populations, conducting field tests, and assessing the feasibility of conducting a well-designed intervention study. Results from this stage of research may be used to inform the design of a study to test the efficacy of an intervention.Intervention efficacy means the stage of research during which a project evaluates and tests whether an intervention is feasible, practical, and has the potential to yield positive outcomes for individuals with disabilities.  Efficacy research may assess the strength of the relationships between an intervention and outcomes and may identify factors or individual characteristics that affect the relationship between the intervention and outcomes.  Efficacy research can inform decisions about whether there is sufficient evidence to support “scaling-up” an intervention to other sites and contexts.  This stage of research may include assessing the training needed for wide-scale implementation of the intervention and approaches to evaluation of the intervention in real-world applications.Scale-up evaluation means the stage of research during which a project analyzes whether an intervention is effective in producing improved outcomes for individuals with disabilities when implemented in a real-world setting.  During this stage of research, a project tests the outcomes of an evidence-based intervention in different settings.  The project examines the challenges to successful replication of the intervention and the circumstances and activities that contribute to successful adoption of the intervention in real-world settings.  This stage of research may also include well-designed studies of an intervention that has been widely adopted in practice, but lacks a sufficient evidence base to demonstrate its effectiveness.