Research Information on Independent Living - RIIL

Top 10 Barriers to Quality Health Care for Women with Disabilities:
I can get my wheelchair through the front door,
but how do I get this body part into that machine?

About the Presenter

Margaret (Peg) A. Nosek, PhD is professor and executive director of the Center for Research on Women with Disabilities in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Baylor College of Medicine. She is an internationally recognized authority on women with disabilities and independent living for persons with disabilities. She has done considerable research and writing on developments in public policy that affect the ability of people with disabilities to live independently in the community; and is recognized as one of the first to examine scientifically the health of women with disabilities. Topics she is currently funded to investigate on women with disabilities include: the cost of depression and other secondary conditions, self-esteem enhancement, health promotion, abuse, and aging. Dr. Nosek's accomplishments are reflected in her many publications and presentations at national and international conferences. Dr. Nosek is recipient of numerous awards for her research and advocacy by local, state and national organizations. As a person with a severe physical disability, she has been both a pioneer and an activist in the disability right movement, including vigorously supporting passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The President's Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities has honored her as a "Disability Patriot."

Carol Howland is Assistant Professor in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Baylor College of Medicine and the Center for Research on Women with Disabilities (CROWD) in Houston, Texas. She has investigated health care access as project director and an investigator for a 3-year, NIDRR-funded study of personal assistance services, health maintenance, and health care utilization among persons with severe physical disabilities, as well as investigating cancer screening and reproductive health care access as part of CROWD's NIH-funded national study of reproductive health in women with physical disabilities. She is an MPH candidate in health services at the University of Texas School of Public Health. Ms. Howland was a researcher at ILRU until 1992, when she participated in establishing CROWD to focus on women's disability issues. She has been at Baylor or TIRR since 1979.

Contact Information

Center for Research on Women with Disabilities
Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation
Baylor College of Medicine
3440 Richmond, Suite B
Houston, TX 77046
713-960-0505
713-961-3555 fax
mnosek@bcm.tmc.edu
www.bcm.tmc.edu/crowd/

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