About the Authors

Tindara Addabbo (e-mail: tindara.addabbo@unimore.it) is Associate Professor in Economic Policy at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia (Italy). She is member of CAPP (Centre for the Analysis of Public Policies), RECent (Center for Economic Research), of the Scientific Committee of Fondazione Marco Biagi, of the European Gender Budgeting Network and of the International network on leave policies and research. Amongst her most recent publications: “A microsimulation model to measure the impact of the economic crisis on household income,” (co-authors Rosa García-Fernández,Carmen Llorca-Rodríguez, Anna Maccagnan), International Journal of Manpower, 2016; “Education capability: A focus on gender and science,” (co-authors: Maria Laura Di Tommaso & Anna Maccagnan), Social Indicators Research, 2016; “Healthy life, social interaction and disability,” (co-authors Elena Sarti, Dario Sciulli), Quality & Quantity, 2015; “Gender differences in Italian children’s capabilities,” (co-authors Di Tommaso, Maccagnan) Feminist Economics, 2014. web site: http://personale.unimore.it/rubrica/curriculum/addabbo

Barbara M. Altman is a Sociologist with a Ph.D. from the University of Maryland. Retired from the National Center for Health Statistics, she currently serves as a consultant on disability statistics issues. She has played a key role in the development of both national and international measurement of disability in Censuses and Surveys. She served on the original organizing board of the Society for Disability Studies in 1984, served as the organization’s third President, was founding Chair of the American Sociological Association (ASA) Section on Disability and Society and has been member and Chair of ASA Committee on Status of Persons with Disability. Her disability research interests focus primarily on disability definition and measurement, access and utilization of health care services by persons with disabilities, and disability among minority groups, particularly Native Americans. She is the author of numerous articles, book chapters and federal publications on disability topics. She is co-editor of the series Research in Social Science and Disability and has edited a new book on measures created by the Washington Group entitled International measurement of disability: Purpose, method and application (2016). Her current project is a text book on disability statistics.

Robyn Lewis Brown is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Co-Director, Health, Society, and Populations Program. She received a Ph.D. in Sociology from Florida State University in 2010. Her research interests lie primarily within the sociologies of health, illness and disability, and connect in significant ways with the fields of social psychology, disability studies and psychiatric epidemiology. Her current work examines two broad topics, which are: (1) The impact of adversity in one’s social environment on mental and physical health outcomes and (2) How social context, stressor exposure and psychosocial resources influence mental and physical health, more generally, and in ways that are patterned by gender and one’s position in the life course.

Gabriele Ciciurkaite is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Utah State University. She received a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Kentucky in 2016. She is a medical sociologist with research expertise in the social determinants of health, social stratification and quantitative methods. Her recent interdisciplinary work informs public health efforts to disparities. Her current research focuses in two primary areas: (1) The intersection of gender, race and socioeconomic status and the ways these social factors create and sustain health disparities and (2) Chronic illness prevention and management among vulnerable populations.

Aref N. Dajani is a Mathematical Statistician in the Center for Disclosure Avoidance Research at the U.S. Census Bureau. He earned his Ph.D. in Statistics at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. He has conducted research in complex survey variance estimation, statistical computing, coverage estimation, nonresponse bias analysis, and interviewer falsification. He recently conducted sampling and estimation training in Jordan and Nepal to professional statisticians in those two nations. He has published in the Journal of Official Statistics, Poverty & Public Policy, and the International Business and Economics Research Journal.

Sara E. Green is Director of the Interdisciplinary Social Sciences Program and an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of South Florida. She is co-chair, with Dr. Thomas J. Gerschick, of the American Sociological Association (ASA) Committee on the Status of Persons with Disabilities in Sociology; and 2016–2017 chair of the ASA Section on Disability & Society. Her research and teaching interests center on various aspects of the social experience of health, illness, and disability across the life course including: Identity, community participation, humor, stigma, health beliefs, organizational membership and satisfaction, and care giving and receiving. Her work has been published in a number of edited volumes and a wide variety of peer reviewed journals. She is co-author, with Shawn Bingham, of Seriously funny: Disability and the paradoxical power of humor (Lynne Rienner, 2016), and co-editor (with Sharon Barnartt) of Sociology looking at disability: What did we know and when did we know it?, Research in Social Science and Disability, Volume 9 (Emerald Group Publishing, 2017).

Barbara A. Haley is a Sociologist who recently retired after more than two decades of government service. She has an earned Ph.D. from the University of Southern California, where she specialized in studies of social stratification and gerontology and produced one of the first spatial analyses of residential burglary in that region. Since then, she presented numerous papers at professional meetings and authored five book chapters. Her publication record includes contributions to the American Journal of Public Health, Poverty and Public Policy, Journal of Urban Technology, the Encyclopedia of Housing and The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. She also co-authored American health care in transition: A guide to the literature and Section 202 supportive housing for the elderly: Program status and performance measurement. She managed more than $2 million in research grants and contracts that focused on assisted housing programs and measurement of public awareness of lead-based paint hazards. She is a past-president of the District of Columbia Sociological Society.

Shakira Hanif is an Occupational Therapist with VHA Home Healthcare working with children and youth in schools. Her work focuses on helping students with various needs engage and participate fully in their academic curriculum.

Jaya Krishnakumar is a full Professor of Econometrics at the University of Geneva, Switzerland. Her research interests include panel data econometrics, multivariate models, and quantitative methods for multi-dimensional well-being analysis. She has publications in international econometrics/economics journals such as Econometric Theory, Journal of Econometrics, Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Computational Statistics and Data Analysis, Journal of Public Economics, European Economic Review, Health Economics, Review of Income and Wealth, Social Indicators Research, World Development, Journal of Human Development and Capabilities. She is both an editor and an author of chapters in books and collections such as Lecture notes in Economics and Mathematical systems (Springer), Contributions to economic analysis (Elsevier) and Advanced studies in theoretical and applied econometrics (Kluwer Academic, Springer). She is a Fellow of the Human Development and Capability Association, an Associate Editor of the International Journal of Public Health, the Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, and a referee for several top journals. She is a member of the International Scientific Committee of COSA, the Committee on Sustainability Assessment. She has supervised several research projects in theoretical and applied econometrics, in particular in the area of modeling and measurement of well-being and capabilities in health, education, work and living conditions, in recent years.

Sally Lindsay is a Senior Scientist in the Bloorview Research Institute at Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital who leads the TRAIL (Transitions and Inclusive Environments) lab. She is also an Associate Professor in the Department of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy at the University of Toronto. Her Ph.D. is in Medical Sociology and the Sociology of Work and Occupations. Her research focuses on the inclusion of children and youth with disabilities at school, work and in the community.

Michelle Maroto is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Alberta. Her recent projects have focused on the causes and consequences of bankruptcy, wealth disparities in the United States and Canada, the effects of incarceration on wealth, and labor market outcomes for people with different types of disabilities.

Charles E. McConnel, Ph.D. is a Professor of Health Care Sciences , and Family and Community Medicine at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, Texas. His research, teaching and publication interests are in health services research, health economics and occasionally in the medical science areas.

Carolyn McDougall is an Occupational Therapist at Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital.

Mairead Eastin Moloney is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Kentucky. Since receiving a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2009, she held postdoctoral fellowships in both research (2009–2011, Program on Integrative Medicine in the School of Medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) and teaching (2011–2013, Department of Sociology at North Carolina State University). Her research utilizes mixed methods to examine medicalization processes, patient-physician interactions, and sleeplessness, emphasizing variation by gender and age.

Nceba Ndzwayiba is an organizational transformation and change specialist with Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Studies which he completed at the University of the Witwatersrand’s Centre for Diversity Studies. He has 12 years’ experience in human resource development, organizational transformation and change, and organizational diversity.

His work experience spans over the corporate and public sector including Netcare Limited, Parliament of the Republic of South Africa, Airports Company South Africa, and Services Sector Education and Training Authority. He serves on a few boards including the Health and Welfare Sector Education and Training Authority (HWSETA) Board. He is particularly interested in critical philosophy, postcolonial and decolonial thought, social and organizational justice, intersectionality with a sharp emphasis on the intersections of race, gender, sexuality, and disability.

Lieketseng Ned graduated as an Occupational Therapist (B.Sc. OT, UWC) in 2009 and completed her M.Phil in Disability Studies at the University of Cape Town in 2013 focusing on livelihoods of disabled youth in rural areas. Her passions are rural community development, Indigenous Knowledge Systems and Disability and Rehabilitation in under-resourced areas. She is a Lecturer at the Centre for Rehabilitation Studies of Stellenbosch University and is currently busy with her Ph.D. focusing on the potential relevance of indigenous knowledge within the current education system to contribute to health and well-being. She is also currently leading a research project focusing on developing a coordinated collaborative response to rehabilitation needs of persons with disabilities.

Halie Peters is an Occupational Therapist working in private practice with children and families in both community and clinic settings. Her work focuses on helping children and youth with various needs achieve their personal, social and academic goals. Halie received her Masters in Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy from the University of Toronto.

David Pettinicchio is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Toronto and an affiliated member of the School of Public Policy and Governance. His current work examines the relationship between political institutions, social policy and economic inequalities among people with disabilities.

Elena Sarti is research collaborator at Marco Biagi Foundation – University of Modena and Reggio Emilia (Italy). She received her B.A. in Economics and Social Sciences from Bocconi University (Italy) in 2006 and her Master’s degree in Economics from the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia in 2009. She completed a Ph.D. in Labor Relations at Marco Biagi Foundation in 2013. One year before finishing her Ph.D., she was appointed as research assistant at the University of Geneva (Switzerland), where she worked for two years on a project titled “The impact of globalization on opportunities for human development.” In 2014, she was teaching assistant at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia and research collaborator at Marco Biagi Foundation for a project on labor market access of people with mental health disorders and impact of the crisis on mental health. Her research interests are on well-being evaluation and distribution, labor economics, health economics, human development, and econometric methods for program and policy evaluation.

Richard K. Scotch, Ph.D. is Professor of Sociology and Public Policy and Political Economy in the School of Economic, Political, and Policy Sciences at the University of Texas at Dallas. His research focuses on disability policy and politics and on social policy reform movements.

Brianna Vice is an honors graduate of the Department of Sociology at the University of South Florida in Tampa. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree in 2015, and accepted a position with Polk County Schools as an eighth grade teacher in the Social Sciences Department at Westwood Middle School in Lakeland, Florida. Brianna presented a paper based on her honors thesis at the Annual Meetings of the American Sociological Society in Seattle, Washington in 2016.

Douglas Waxman is a Ph.D. student in Critical Disability Studies at York University. With a focus on organizational behavior and disability policy, Douglas’s work includes a range policy research in the social, employment and disability sectors. Under the leadership of some of Canada’s top-ranked scholars, some of Douglas’s recent studies look at: How to effect corporate culture change to integrate employees with disabilities; Policy analysis of provincial welfare systems and their impact on persons with mental illness; Employers’ attitudes toward persons with disabilities; Supply and demand side barriers to employment for persons with disabilities. Prior to his doctoral program, Douglas received his Juris Doctor degree from Osgoode Hall Law School and a Masters in Public Administration from NYU’s Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. He was awarded the York Graduate Scholarship and his continuing research on employers’ attitudes in Canada has earned him an Ontario Graduate Scholarship. Douglas is the First Vice President and Chair of the Policy Committee at the ARCH Disability Law Centre. He has also devoted portion of his volunteer career to policy, with the Learning Disability Association of Ontario, where he has had roles ranging from committee member to President.