Intersections of Race, Justice and Disability in North Carolina (2021-2022)

Background The COVID-19 pandemic shed light on the fragilities of social, economic and political frameworks. Due in some degree to the pandemic, the social, racial, gender and economic disparities in the United States have been accentuated. Discussions of the equal or equitable distribution of vaccines show the crevasses within the social fabric of America. More precisely, the disproportional impact of the pandemic on Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) has been reported. Although not often described, living with a disability and belonging to the BIPOC communities also affects an individual's ability to fulfill their human rights, and may create even greater stigma and marginalization. Project Description Building on the work of the 2020-2021 team, which explored the disproportional impact of COVID-19 on people with disabilities, this year's project team will investigate the intersections of disability, race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status and human rights among people with disabilities across North Carolina. The primary goal of this project is to build on experiences gathered from a series of key informants' interviews and focus group discussions to create a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) that can have broad-based utility and impact. Team members will pursue three main objectives: Describe the lived experiences of people with disabilities who are part of the BIPOC communities across the three regions of North Carolina (Mountain, Piedmont, Coastal Plains) Develop evidence-based and inclusive policy and practice response mechanisms recommendations aiming for greater inclusion of people with disabilities who are part of the BIPOC communities. Create a short MOOC to raise awareness and build inclusion competencies among stakeholders. The team will build and submit the project protocol and conduct a scoping review along with a series of 15 interviews to explore the experiences, needs and extent of inclusion and barriers in access for people with disabilities who are part of the BIPOC communities. Interviews will be conducted via videoconferencing. A series of three focus group discussions (one in each of the state's regions) will be conducted with a broad base of community stakeholders. Team members will triangulate the data and lessons learned from the previous year's team, along with the results from the scoping review, interviews and focus group discussions, in order to build a five-hour MOOC. This final product will be publicly accessible. Anticipated Outputs Scoping review; three manuscripts; five-hour MOOC