Independence for Older adults and People with Disabilities

The National Advisory Board (NAB) on Improving Health Care Services for Older Adults and People with Disabilities is comprised of distinguished and culturally diverse community advocates, health care experts, and academics who provide guidance and policy recommendations for improving programs and services for older adults and individuals with disabilities.

Vision

We believe it is necessary for all Americans to be educated about the issues facing older adults and individuals with disabilities for two critical reasons:

• First, the course of aging is a naturally occurring process which affects each of us.
• Second, no person is impervious to disability. A parent or spouse can become paralyzed as a result of a stroke, an infant can be born with an intellectual disability, a child can become disabled as a result of a playground injury, or a best friend can develop major depression and a substance use disorder as a result of being a soldier at war.

Disability can occur at any time or through the natural process of aging. Disability extends across race, age, ethnicity, level of education and socioeconomic status. Simply, none of us is immune to aging or living with a disability. Therefore, we believe Americans must be educated on the health, wellness, social and economic issues facing older adults and individuals with disabilities so that we collectively can design a future infrastructure that works and is accessible by all.

Who We Are

As a Board, we are people with disabilities; children of aging parents; parents of children and adults with disabilities; and, sisters, brothers, spouses, children and friends of people with disabilities. We represent millions of Americans with disabilities and older adults and their family members who have struggled with the complexities of our fragmented health care system. Each of us brings a personal perspective to the subject of long-term care because each of us has personal experience with it. We, individually and collectively, have worked along with other Americans to overcome the many hurdles to obtain the services we need to live successfully in our communities—hurdles such as the lack of coordination between acute and long-term services and supports, antiquated systems and policies, and lack of infrastructure development for long-term services.

The National Advisory Board would like to thank Elevance Health for funding our work. Elevance is working to transform health care with trusted and caring solutions. With nearly 69 million people served by its affiliated companies including nearly 37 million enrolled in its family of health plans, Elevance is one of the nation’s leading health benefit companies. To learn more, go to ElevanceHealth.com.

National Advisory Board Members

Lex Frieden (Convener)
Professor of Biomedical Informatics and Rehabilitation,
University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston
Professor of Rehabilitation, Baylor College of Medicine
Director, Independent Living Research Utilization, a
program at TIRR Memorial Hermann

Julia Bascom
Former Executive Director, Autistic Self Advocacy Network (ASAN)

Laurin Bixby, PhD
Research Scientist, Lurie Insitute for Disability Policy, Brandeis University

Kathy Brill, MEd, MPS
Principal, Brill Consulting

Charles Christiansen, EdD
Former Executive Director, American Occupational Therapy Foundation
Clinical Professor, the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston

National Advisory Board Members

Yanira Cruz
President and CEO, National Hispanic Council on Aging (NHCOA)

Berthy De La Rosa-Aponte, MA
Former Member, President’s Committee for People with Intellectual Disabilities
Former Chair, U.S. Ticket to Work and Work Incentives Advisory Panel

Sita Diehl
Public Policy and Advocacy, National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) Wisconsin

Kathy Greenlee
President and CEO Greenlee Global and Senior Director, Advancing States

Jae Kennedy
Professor, Elson S Floyd College of Medicine, Washington State University

Leonard Kirschner, MD, MPH
Member, Arizona State Medicaid Advisory Committee
Former Director, Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (1987-1993)

Sandy Markwood
CEO, USAging

Katy Neas
CEO, The Arc of the United States

Cynthia Overton, PhD
Director of Tech Workplace Initiatives, The Kapor Center

Carolyn P. Phillips, M.Ed., CPACC
Director of Center for Inclusive Design and Innovation (CIDI) Education at Georgia Tech, Director & Principal Investigator of Tools for Life, Georgia’s Assistive Technology (AT) Act Program

Michelle Putnam, PhD
Director, The Gerontology Institute at the University of Massachusetts

Mary Sowers
Executive Director, National Association of State Directors of Developmental Disabilities Services (NASDDDS)

Sherrill Wayland MSW
Senior Director of Special Initiatives and Partnerships, Sage

Guiying (Angel) Zhong
Research Associate, University of Michigan Institute for Social Research