Disability News and Research

A weekly summary of selected disability news and findings from around the world.

In the News
Recent Reports
Recent Articles

Week of May 16, 2013

In the News

The Des Moines Register reported that the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission “is asking a federal judge to dramatically reduce the $240 million jury award the commission won for 32 mentally disabled employees of Henry’s Turkey Service. If the request is approved, the workers would see their individual damages reduced from $7.5 million each to just $50,000 each, for a total of $1.6 million, plus interest.”

The Los Angeles Times profiled Vietnam veterans who file for disability benefits.  The veterans “account for the largest share of the 865,000 veterans stuck in a growing and widely denounced backlog of compensation claims—some 37%.”

Minnesota Public Radio reported that the city of St. Paul has failed to reach its target for hiring people with disabilities on city contracts. “Contractors responding to a 2012 inquiry from St. Paul reported [that] less than 1 percent of their employees identified themselves as disabled. The city's goal was 10 percent, a target it first set in 2006.”

Recent Reports

Morton, William R. Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) Reform: An Overview of Proposals to Reduce the Growth in SSDI Rolls. Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, April 2013.

Recent Articles

Agovino, M., and A. Rapposelli. “Employment of Disabled People in the Private Sector. An Analysis at the Level of Italian Provinces According to Article 13 of Law 68/1999.” Quality and Quantity, 2013, online ahead of print.

Boeltzig-Brown, Heike, Chuji Sashida, Osamu Nagase, William E. Kiernan, and Susan M. Foley. “The Vocational Rehabilitation Service System in Japan.” Journal of Vocational Rehabilitation, vol. 38, no. 3, 2013, pp. 169–183.

Gould, F., S. Sabbag, D. Durand, T.L. Patterson, and P.D. Harvey. “Self-Assessment of Functional Ability in Schizophrenia: Milestone Achievement and Its Relationship to Accuracy of Self-Evaluation.” Psychiatry Research, vol. 207, no. 1, 2013, pp. 19–24.

Harvey, Samuel B., Matthew Modini, Helen Christensen, and Nicholas Glozier. “Severe Mental Illness and Work: What Can We Do to Maximise the Employment Opportunities for Individuals with Psychosis?” Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, vol. 47, no. 5, 2013, pp. 421–424.

Kostøl, Andreas R., and Magne Mogstad. “How Financial Incentives Induce Disability Insurance Recipients to Return to Work."NBER Working Paper No. 19016. Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research, 2013
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LePage, J.P., A.A. Lewis, E.L. Washington, B. Davis, and A. Glasgow. “Effects of Structured Vocational Services in Ex-Offender Veterans with Mental Illness: 6-Month Follow-Up.” Journal of Rehabilitation Research and Development, vol. 50, no. 2, 2013, pp. 183­–192.

Lockett, Helen, and Clive Bensemann. “Employment as a Health Intervention—the Role of Psychiatry in Bridging the Evidence to Practice Gap.” Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, vol. 47, no. 5, 2013, pp. 417–420.

Martinez, Kathleen. “Integrated Employment, EmploymentFirst, and U.S. Federal Policy.” Journal of Vocational Rehabilitation, vol. 38, no. 3, 2013, pp. 165–168.

Nygren, Ulla, Urban Markström, Birgitta Bernspång, Bengt Svensson, Lars Hansson, and Mikael Sandlund. “Predictors of Vocational Outcomes Using Individual Placement and Support for People with Mental Illness.” Work, vol. 45, no. 1, 2013, pp. 31–39.

Verhoef, J.A.C., H.S. Miedema, J. Van Meeteren, H.J. Stam, and M.E. Roebroeck. “A New Intervention to Improve Work Participation of Young Adults with Physical Disabilities: A Feasibility Study.” Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology,2013, online ahead of print.

Waghorn, Geoffrey. “Severe Mental Illness and Work.” Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, vol. 47, no. 5, 2013, pp. 488–489.

Wells, K.B., L. Jones, B. Chung, E.L. Dixon, L. Tang, J. Gilmore, C. Sherbourne, V.K. Ngo, M.K. Ong, S. Stockdale, E. Ramos, T.R. Belin, and J. Miranda. “Community-Partnered Cluster-Randomized Comparative Effectiveness Trial of Community Engagement and Planning or Resources for Services to Address Depression Disparities.” Journal of General Internal Medicine, 2013, online ahead of print.