Reinvigorating the Rehab Act: Bringing “Nothing About Us Without Us” to the Research Enterprise
By Anjali Forber-Pratt, Director of ACL’s National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research
In 1978, what is now the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR) was created by an amendment to the Rehab Act. While our name has changed a few times in the years since, our basic purpose and reason for being has remained the same.NIDILRR funds applied research that results in innovative technological devices, prototypes, measurement tools, interventions, and more to enhance community living, health and function, and employment among people with disabilities. Whereas other federal research entities fund prevention, cure, and acute rehabilitation research, NIDILRR focuses on rehabilitation research that is tied more closely to longer-term outcomes, such as independent living and community participation. Over the years, NIDILRR-funded research has led to accessible voting machines, accessible lavatories on airplane bathrooms, and much more.Today, NIDILRR is leading the way on ensuring that research includes all of us. “Nothing about us without us,” the famed mantra of the disability community, also must apply across the entire research enterprise. At NIDILRR, we are working to identify and remove barriers that result in disabled people being underrepresented in disability research — both as researchers and as study participants.
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