A new study reports that the proportion of researchers who report disabilities in National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant applications fell by more than one-third from 2008 to 2018, according to an article in Nature. The study also determined that those disclosing disabilities are “slightly less likely to win a grant than are those who say they are not disabled.”
Hearing loss, the most commonly reported disability, according to the study, can be particularly challenging for scientific collaboration.
“I wear hearing aids, and I rely on lip-reading, captioning, and sign-language interpreting,” Henry Adler, a researcher who studies hearing at the University at Buffalo in New York, was quoted as saying in the article. Adler notes, however, that captioning and interpreters aren’t always made available to those that need them, and said he has struggled to communicate, at times.
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Source: Nature
