Partnering with Public Health on Research Study

Disability Empowerment Center recently partnered with Public Health – Seattle & King County to co-conduct a survey and issue a report about the impact COVID has had on people with disabilities.

We were pleased to work on this project together to better understand how this pandemic has affected our community. Disability Empowerment staff helped with this effort in several ways: by finding members of the community who met the criteria for the survey, by providing context and support to participants, by developing interview questions together with public health staff and by conducting the interviews. We also reviewed the report before it was published.

The study found that the pandemic caused many negative impacts on people with disabilities who live in King County—and, importantly, those negative impacts were more encompassing than in the general population. The findings examined how employment, finances, food security, housing, physical, emotional and mental health, education and the ability to access services were affected for people with disabilities. It also found that when disabled people have connections to support and services, some of the negative impacts can be offset.

We believe it’s really important to understand how people with disabilities experienced the pandemic so that future public health responses can best meet the needs of our community. A big thank-you to Public Health – Seattle & King County for their partnership and commitment to this important research.

You can read the full report here.

Read about other King County data and metrics here.