Q: Disability

The Question

Do you identify as having a disability as defined under the
[Americans with Disabilities Act](https://adata.org/faq/what-definition-disability-under-ada)?
[] Yes, Cognitive
[] Yes, Emotional
[] Yes, Hearing
[] Yes, Mental
[] Yes, Physical
[] Yes, Visual
[] Yes, Self Identify: _________________
[] No
[] Prefer not to answer

Does your disability affect how you work?
() Yes
() No
() Prefer not to answer

Questions this can help you answer

While the raw data from this question can tell you how many of your community members have a disability, the data from this question can also act as a sign that your community needs to be more inclusive. If your community holds in-person events but doesn’t include any accommodations for people with disabilities, the data from this question can help you decide where to focus your resources first. However, just because you don’t have survey respondents saying that they (for example) have a hearing impairment, doesn’t mean those community members don’t exist and that you shouldn’t make accomodations.

The Rationale

Thoughts for including

[coming soon]

Thoughts for excluding

[coming soon]

Technical Notes

Ethical concerns

Identifiable

In many communities, the combination of disability and another metric (like gender or location) may be enough to identify the respondant.

Ethical Considerations

  • Many disabilities are not visible and this question is a challenge to people who choose to keep their disabilit[ies] private.
  • It can be risky to reveal one’s disability status online, and safety is also a concern for respondents. See [BT03]: for more information

Further Reading

The citation plugin renders the items with links to their academic sources (often paywalled), but you can go straight into the github repository and download every file for which we have a PDF.

[BT03]Natilene Bowker and Keith Tuffin. Dicing with Deception: People with Disabilities’ Strategies for Managing Safety and Identity Online. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 8(2):0–0, 2003. URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1083-6101.2003.tb00209.x, doi:10.1111/j.1083-6101.2003.tb00209.x.
[Doa16]Petra Doan. To Count or Not to Count: Queering Measurement and the Transgender Community. Women’s Studies Quarterly, 44(3/4):89–110, October 2016. URL: http://search.proquest.com/docview/1831356971/.

Todo

  • complete disability data standard