DURHAM, N.H. - The renewal of a five-year federal grant will enable the Institute on Disability (IOD) at the University of New Hampshire to improve access to existing disability data and provide a better picture of employment for people with disabilities.  

"The work we do for this grant will not only provide us with a better picture of employment for people with disabilities," said Andrew Houtenville, research director at the Institute on Disability, "but it will help people better frame the issues, monitor current circumstances and progress, judge the effectiveness of policies and programs, make projections about the future, and predict the costs of potential policy changes."

The $4.3 million grant from the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR) strives to support the disability and policy communities as they take on important policy issues by generating and translating new knowledge about disability employment policy and ways to measure the labor market experiences of people with disabilities. Ultimately this will lead to increased employment for people with disabilities.

Key partners on the grant include Mathematica, Hunter College, Kessler Foundation, and the Association of University Centers on Disability (AUCD). For more information, visit www.researchondisability.org.

The Institute on Disability at the University of New Hampshire was established in 1987 to provide a university-based focus for the improvement of knowledge, policies, and practices related to the lives of persons with disabilities and their families. Its mission is to promote full access, equal opportunities, and participation for all persons by strengthening communities and advancing policy and systems change, promising practices, education, and research.

The University of New Hampshire, founded in 1866, is a world-class public research university with the feel of a New England liberal arts college. A land, sea, and space-grant university, UNH is the state's flagship public institution, enrolling 13,000 undergraduate and 2,500 graduate students.