Eliminating Inequities for Women With Disabilities An Agenda for Health and Wellness

Over 20 million American women and girls have some form of disability. Women with disabilities often have difficulty accessing health care services, and the quality of the health care they do receive is often worse than the care received by women without disabilities and men with disabilities.

Using an integrated care framework as a foundation, authors in this book tackle the structural, environmental, and social barriers that prevent women with disabilities from accessing effective and culturally competent care and services, and offer plans for action to improve wellness, health promotion, and disease prevention among this broad yet consistently underserved population.

Shari E. Miles-Cohen, PhD, is senior director of the Women's Programs Office at APA.
 
Dr. Miles-Cohen has received funding from the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Women's Health, to explore the educational needs and health care needs of women with disabilities. Prior to joining APA, she served in leadership positions with university-based and independent nonprofit organizations working to improve the lives of women and girls, including the African American Women's Institute, the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues, and the Women's Research and Education Institute.
 
Dr. Miles-Cohen holds a bachelor of arts from the University of Colorado at Boulder, and a master of science and a doctorate of philosophy in personality psychology from Howard University. She is a fellow of APA.
 
Her first edited book focused on the status of African American women in the United States and was published while she was a graduate student. Since that time, she has worked to promote an intersectional analysis of women's lives, especially related to women's health and wellness. She lives in Washington, DC, with her husband and son.
 
Caroline Signore, MD, MPH, is a board-certified obstetrician-gynecologist, and a fellow of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG).
 
Her interest in the reproductive health care needs of women with disabilities arose in 1996, when, shortly after completing her residency training, she sustained a traumatic cervical spinal cord injury. Since then, she has delivered a number of presentations on reproductive health and wellness in women with disabilities, served as a guest reviewer for a handbook on health for women with disabilities in developing countries, and authored chapters for women's health textbooks.
 
From 2004 to 2009, Dr. Signore served as an advisory board member to an ACOG committee to produce resources to assist ACOG members with providing quality reproductive health care to women with disabilities. Her special interest is increasing awareness among clinicians of the barriers to reproductive health care faced by women with disabilities and how care providers can address these barriers to deliver more comprehensive, competent, and sensitive care for all women.