Health and Disability
NACCHO’s Health and Disability Program is supported by the National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The program provides local health departments with the tools and resources needed to successfully include people with disabilities in all local health department activities.
NACCHO’s Health and Disability fellowship program is a training program for graduate students in the field of public health who are interested in learning more about the population of people with disabilities as a public health priority population. NACCHO’s Health and Disability fellows have several workforce development opportunities including: providing technical assistance to local health departments, maintaining a health and disability tool-kit, and developing disability fact sheets and trainings for local health department staff.
In addition, fellows participate in workgroup meetings with NACCHO’s national partners, as well as receive a stipend and travel support to at least one conference. Fellows may work remotely from their graduate schools or at NACCHO’s headquarters in Washington, DC. Fellows are expected to work a total of 15-20 hours a week. Applications for the 2018-2019 fellowship cohort are now closed. Applications for the 2019-2020 fellowship will open summer 2019.
NACCHO provides technical assistance on the topics of emergency preparedness planning and health promotion programming for people with disabilities. Applications for technical assistance are now being accepted until January 26th, 2018.
NACCHO holds initial one hour consultation calls with local health departments and outlines an action plan. NACCHO staff and fellows provide technical assistance and local health departments are provided with a summary report including recommendations and resources to promote inclusion.
NACCHO’s Health and Disability program maintains a diverse workgroup with partners from national disability organizations, local health departments, academic researchers and people with disabilities. The workgroup meets on a quarterly basis. The workgroup is instrumental in reviewing tools and resources for local health departments and has played a crucial role in the development of NACCHO's Health and Disability policy statement.
The following policy statements demonstrate NACCHO's commitment to health and disability at the local level.