Mission
The Accessibility Committee is dedicated to fostering full participation in APHA conference events for attendees with disabilities. Through collaboration with APHA, the Accessibility Committee works to remove barriers and promote understanding of the needs of people with disabilities. The Accessibility Committee seeks to ensure that the activities of the DisAbility Section are welcoming and supportive of attendees with disabilities and to promote disability awareness and sensitivity throughout the American Public Health Association.
The DisAbility Section Accessibility Committee has been actively promoting full participation in APHA annual meeting activities for people with disabilities since 2004. The Accessibility Committee began under the leadership of Dorothy (Dot) Nary to address disability-related barriers that were identified by conference attendees with disabilities.
Committee Members
Co-Chairs
Catherine Leigh Graham MEBME
Rehabilitation Engineer
USC-School of Medicine
Interagency Office of Disability and Health
3209 Colonial Drive
Columbia, SC 29203
Phone: 803-434-3189
Fax: 803-434-8374
E-Mail: catherine.graham@uscmed.sc.edu
Anthony Cahill, PhD
Director, Division of Disability and Health Policy
Center for Development and Disability
UNM School of Medicine
2300 Menaul Boulevard NE
Albuquerque, NM 87107
Phone: 505-272-2990
Fax: 505-272-9594
Accomplishments
Working with the DisAbility Section Council and APHA leaders, the Accessibility Committee has instituted several practices to foster its goal of full participation within the DisAbility Section and throughout APHA. These efforts are on-going and depend heavily upon feedback from individuals with disabilities who attend DisAbility Section scientific sessions and meetings throughout APHA. Feedback from meeting attendees is responsible for several new initiatives.
Stronger collaborative efforts with APHA to further progress toward full conference participation of meeting attendees with disabilities
Disability-specific presenter guidelines and accessible PowerPoint template to assist presenters in creating an accessible oral presentation
Disability-focused moderator guidelines to encourage disability accessible scientific sessions
Development of poster presenter guidelines to facilitate preparation of posters that are disability accessible
Implementation of an annual Accessibility Survey in collaboration with APHA to collect data on accessibility issues
Development of a Conference Center Inventory for cities in which APHA holds its annual meetings to assist in addressing disability issues early in the conference planning process
Contact Us
People interested in learning more about the work of the Accessibility Committee, APHA members wanting to join the Accessibility Committee, or individuals wishing to provide feedback on their experiences with disability-related accessibility issues arising during annual meetings are encouraged to contact
Catherine Leigh Graham at catherine.graham@uscmed.sc.edu
Anthony Cahill at acahill@salud.unm.edu
We want to know about the accessibility practices and policies that are working well, those that would work better with targeted changes, and problems with accessibility that are not being addressed.
For more information on APHA’s efforts to make its meetings disability accessible, click here for the APHA Accessibility pages.