The Lurie Institute for Disability Policy

The Lurie Institute for Disability Policy at Brandeis University’s Heller School leads research that helps shape policies, programs and practices which improve the lives of people with disabilities across the lifespan.

We partner with people with disabilities, community organizations, policymakers, and clinicians to produce research that addresses the critical issues that people with disabilities and their families face. This research incorporates qualitative and quantitative projects that are informed by the disability community and grounded in disability justice. Our research team includes established academic scholars, postdoctoral fellows, professional research staff, and student research assistants. We prioritize mentorship of the next generation of researchers.

What's Happening at the Lurie Institute

Accessibility and Health Starts Before Pregnancy: Tailored Preconception Education with People with Mobility Disabilities

A healthy pregnancy and birth start with being healthy before pregnancy. We will discuss how to prepare for a healthy pregnancy while living with a disability. We will discuss special issues related to disability that can be addressed before pregnancy. We will discuss some of our research that is trying to provide disability-tailored preconception education.

Register now!

Strategies for Supporting Parents with Disabilities When There is Child Protection Involvement

This webinar provides an overview of ableism and discrimination within child protection and provide parents with strategies for addressing these injustices. Presented by Dr. Elizabeth Lightfoot, Distinguished Professor of Social Policy and Director of the Arizona State University School of Social Work, and Dr. Kara Ayers, Associate Professor at Cincinnati Children's Hospital.

RECORDING available now

Introducing an Interactive Dashboard to Learn More about People with Disabilities

The Community Living Equity Center (CLEC) is thrilled to launch our new data dashboard that examines who needs and receives Long Term Services and Supports (LTSS) across the United States. While research has been conducted on how disabled people of color access, use, experience, and are affected by education, healthcare, employment, and criminal legal systems, little has been done to understand racial and ethnic disparities in community living.

This new dashboard presents data on the percentage and demographic characteristics of racial and ethnic minorities with LTSS needs and their utilization of Medicaid HCBS and institutional LTSS by racial and ethnic categories, as well as other indicators of disparities in community living equity. The disability community has historically faced barriers to accessing information and timely, credible data vital for local communities and individuals to advocate for data-driven responses for equity in policymaking. The dissemination of data through the Community Living Equity Data Dashboard will enable disability advocates from the local levels to advocate for shifts in policies and services to advance community living equity. Jen and Laurin will demonstrate how to use this data dashboard and will discuss the data. This webinar emphasizes how the data dashboard can be used by advocates in the disability community and other stakeholders.

RECORDING AVAILABLE soon

Access the Disability Data Dashboard

Disability Research for a New Generation

The Lurie Undergraduate Fellowship offers opportunity to learn policy and create community.

For more than half a century, the Brandeis University community has championed the rights of people with disabilities, part of the school’s commitment to social justice.

READ THE FULL STORY

Current Featured Work

Webinar: Living with Anxiety as a Disabled Parent

The Center for Parents webinar will discuss the anxiety of new parenthood from the viewpoint of two disabled mothers. Both generalized anxiety disorder among disabled parents and day-to-day anxieties of parenting with a disability when parents often experience stigma and ableism at both a structural and personal level will be discussed. Register here.

Issue Brief: Beyond the Minimum: How Social Housing Can Fully Include Disabled People

This Community Living Policy Center issue brief explores the burgeoning movement for social housing in the United States and the untapped opportunities it presents to increase permanent, affordable, accessible housing for disabled renters.

Olmstead 25th Anniversary Panel: The Progress and Promise of the Olmstead Decision

Webinar: The Progress and Promise of the Olmstead Decision

For the 25th anniversary of the Olmstead decision, join the Community Living Policy Center for a timely and important panel event on key milestones of Olmstead advocacy and future directions for community living policy. Access the recording.

New Brief: Housing Circumstances of Parents with Disabilities within the Child Welfare System

This study from the National Research Center for Parents with Disabilities examines the housing circumstances of parents with disabilities in the child welfare system, with particular attention to race/ethnicity and disability.

“People with disabilities, like everybody else, should have the supports to live and to thrive in their communities.”

—Monika Mitra, Director of the Lurie Institute