On December 3rd, the United Nations will celebrate International Day of Persons with Disabilities. The theme for 2015 is “Inclusion matters: Access and empowerment for people of all abilities.” The work of the NIDILRR community fits in very well with this theme and we’d like to introduce you to some (but hardly all) of the projects currently at work in the sub-theme areas:

Making cities inclusive and accessible for all:

• The Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center on Universal Design and the Built Environment
• Investigating Performance Indicators in Accessible and Inclusive Public Transportation
• Wheelchair Optimal Route Planning for Public Urban and Indoor Spaces
• The Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center on Physical Access and Transportation
  • The Tiramisu project – social-network based transit information for accessible public transportation
• Recent grantee publications on improving access and inclusion in cities.

Improving disability data and statistics:

• Rehabilitation Research and Training Center on Disability Statistics and Demographics
• Rehabilitation Research and Training Center on Employment Policy and Measurement
• Rehabilitation Research and Training Center on Home and Community-Based Services Outcomes Measurement
• National data and statistical centers for burn injury, traumatic brain injury, and spinal cord injury
• Explore VR: Web-Based Open Share Public Portal of Survey Data on VR and other Employment Service Providers
• Recent grantee publications on statistics and demographics indexed in REHABDATA

Including persons with invisible disabilities in society and development:

• Rehabilitation Research and Training Center on Promoting Healthy Aging for Individuals with Long-Term Physical Disabilities
• I-CONNECT Plus: Enhancing Community Participation for Adolescents and Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorders
• Rehabilitation Research and Training Center on Improved Employment Outcomes for Individuals with Psychiatric Disabilities
• Promoting Independence and Self-Management using mHealth
• Current projects on multiple sclerosis, chronic conditions, psychiatric disabilities, emotional disorders.
• Recent grantee publications on invisible, hidden, and chronic disabilities

This is just a glimpse at the work of the NIDILRR community to support the full inclusion of people with disabilities in the communities of their own choosing. We invite you to explore the current group of more than 250 active projects in our Program Database and to browse through our collection indexed in REHABDATA.