Slides from a presentation given at the excellent American Association of Geographers 2016 conference with a focus on social disability issues and mapping applications. Data was sourced from the American Community Survey.

1. Contours of Disability in America
Presenter
Hamish Robertson
PhD Candidate
Faculty of Medicine
University of NSW
Australia
The Disability Special Interest Group

2. Contents
• Introduction
• Disability as a dynamic construct
• Disability in the United States
• Contouring disability
• Spatial visualisation and applied
geography
• Pilot Examples
• Conclusion

3. Diversity and Disability
https://www.academia.edu/17137498/Cultural_Diversity_Comp
etency_Self-Assessment_Tool_2015

4. Disability as a Dynamic Construct
• Traditional eugenics, charity and welfare models
(population and poverty regulation)
• Still a very quick way to poverty, even in the rich countries
• Rising complexity with intersection of disability, chronic
disease and population ageing (the great convergence)
• Age-related disability is a feminist issue
• The disability paradox – getting worse but feeling good,
clinical versus self-assessment
• Brain ageing, neuroepidemiology and disabling
consequences – watch this space
• The ongoing politics of disability and representational
issues/conflicts in our societies – class, gender, ‘race’,
ethnicity etc.

5. Globalisation of the WHO Disability
Concept

6. Reality Trumps Convention?

7. Disability in
the United
States

8. Uncertainty and Disability

9. US Disability Data Source

10. Some Spatial Analysis and Visualisation Issues
• Marginalised groups are often more highly spatially
segregated
• Visual data management methods are on the rise
• GIS/mapping still marginal to much of health and social
care work
• Spatial literacy in many health/social care disciplines
remains low
• Spatial analysis may serve some interests and detract
from others – e.g. evidence-based’ policy
• Ubiquitous mapping technologies driving some change
• Causal analysis is better than correlation i.e. GIS as
explanatory and exploratory

11. State Disability Prevalence Rates 2010

12. Female Disability Aged 65+

13. Male Disability 65+

14. 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14
Utah
Colorado
Hawaii
New Hampshire
California
Connecticut
District of Columbia
Illinois
Iowa
Nebraska
Vermont
New York
Arizona
Montana
United States
Georgia
Indiana
Oregon
Michigan
Ohio
New Mexico
Missouri
Louisiana
Oklahoma
Alabama
Mississippi
West Virginia
Total
Ambulatory
Disability by
State
%

15. US Census Population Estimate 2014

16. County Disability Prevalence Estimate

17. Inquiring on County Geography

18. Visual Information in a Spatial Context

19. Additional Data Sources

20. Maptitude and US Health Data Set

21. Conclusion
• The dynamics of disability are increasingly fluid and have
spatial effects/consequences that require analysis
• We know social inequalities and inequities exhibit spatial
patterns – poverty/disability nexus
• Geography and spatial science as tools for an increasingly
complex world – human and natural systems
• Spatial literacy for disability, health and ageing -
intersectional planning and response capacities
• Visualisation is in a major growth phase and spatial
visualisation has a major contribution to make
• The geography of disability is a vital perspective in
progressing access, quality of care and health/social
outcomes for people with disabilities
• Perhaps it can help re-write the disability landscape