Debra Brucker, PhD, Research Associate Professor at the Institute on Disability, was recently awarded two new grants!
Analyzing Access to Services with Long COVID
First, she was awarded a one-year $178,644 project from the University of Wisconsin Retirement and Disability Research Consortium. In collaboration with Vidya Sundar, PhD, Associate Professor of Occupational Therapy at UNH, and Emre Umucu, PhD, Associate Professor of Health Sciences at the University of Texas – El Paso, this project will be conducting focus groups and survey data analysis to identify any barriers that people with Long COVID, particularly those from racial and ethnic minority groups, face in accessing services and supports from the Social Security Administration and vocational rehabilitation agencies.
This mixed methods project, designed with community engagement at all levels, will combine multivariate analyses of data from the National Survey on Health and Disability with qualitative research that analyzes data from focus groups conducted with people with Long Covid who are from racial/ethnic minority groups (including persons with limited English proficiency) and with vocational rehabilitation counselors to identify Social Security Administration (SSA) and vocational rehabilitation (VR) service needs for this population.
Exploring access to SSI benefits for minority persons with psychiatric disabilities
Second, Dr. Brucker was awarded a one-year $175,000 project from the University of Michigan Retirement and Disability Research Consortium. In collaboration with Pat Corrigan, PsyD, at Illinois Institute of Technology and Thresholds (a community-based mental health services organization based in Chicago, Illinois), this project will use community-based participatory research to investigate barriers and facilitators of access to Supplemental Security Income benefits for minority persons with psychiatric disabilities.
The Community Based Participatory Research team, which includes persons with psychiatric disabilities, will conduct focus groups including 18-24 people and individual surveys with approximately 50-60 people with this population to gather information about barriers to, facilitators of, and impact of SSI on economic security. The results are expected to provide actionable recommendations to community-level providers and SSA.
