The COVID-19 pandemic amplified some of the undeniable and unacceptable inequities in our society, and it finally feels like there is meaningful momentum to address the injustice of health inequities. Although we, the co-authors of this blog, welcome this incredibly important collective action to enhance health equity, as disabled people ourselves, we fear that current equity-focused work largely overlooks and excludes the 1 in 4 Americans with disability from efforts to center health equity and confront preventable health disparities.
In a recently released Health Equity Framework, the National Council on Disability and other disability-led organizations elevated an urgent call to include disability in health equity efforts. We share their view that a true commitment to health equity cannot exclude or marginalize disability. To support their call to action, we examine and argue why it is critical that people with disability are included in advocacy for health equity. We also recommend several concrete actions that organizations working to advance health equity can take to ensure people with disability are included in the research and policymaking process. (author abstract)