Celebrating 32 Years with the ADA

Today marks the 32nd anniversary of the passing of the Americans with Disabilities (ADA) Act.?

Some people may not recall the magnitude of that legislation, but I remember a not-too-distant past when there was no wheelchair accessibility in public buildings and it was legal to discriminate against a person with a disability at school and the workplace. It seems incomprehensible now but it wasn’t before 1990. The ADA changed society for the better.?

Today, there are more than 1 billion people globally living with a disability, according to the World Health Organization. In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says about one in four adults (61 million Americans) live with a disability.

Working for Disability Inclusion

At Nielsen, we are working hard for disability inclusion. We have a business resource group called ADEPT (Abled and Disabled Employees Partnering Together) that has helped raise awareness around living with a disability and ending the stigma of having one.

When the pandemic started in 2020, ADEPT focused on mental health. We encouraged employees to share how mental illness was impacting them or their families. Incredibly, one-third of my colleagues wrote blog posts sharing their stories, completely changing the internal dynamic. The stigma was gone.

Today, in addition to monthly programs and external speakers addressing topics such as autism awareness and connecting with the deaf and hard- of- hearing community, we are focused on elevating our internal conversations.?

Largely Unseen in the Media

Our research has shown that people with disabilities remain largely unseen or inaccurately represented in TV, movies and ad content on screen. Through this year, more than 6,700 video titles have disability themes, according to our Gracenote Video Data, but that represents a mere 0.8% of the 817,000 titles that audiences had to choose from as of February 2022.?

Among the video content available, disability representation is highest in feature films, but Americans spend significantly more time with television programs than feature films. With just under 20% of series/miniseries content inclusive of disability themes, it’s not surprising that nearly 50% of people with disabilities feel their identity group is underrepresented on TV.

Generation Valuable

Today, we partnered with the corporate advocacy group The Valuable 500 to announce the first cohort of companies from around the world participating in a new mentorship program called Generation Valuable where select employees with disabilities will be paired with a mentor in the C-Suite over the course of a year. Together, the mentee and mentor will share perspectives, discuss career growth and navigate the challenges that people who are disabled face in middle management. Nielsen will select its Generation Valuable participants this fall.

Last year, I signed a Valuable 500 commitment to – among other things – maintain and recruit diverse Nielsen panelists for our measurement products, use our insights and data to advance the representation of disabilities in the industry’s on-screen content and ensure Nielsen’s facilities are accessible for people with disabilities.?

Having a disability is not something to overcome, it is something to be respected. Happy anniversary to the ADA.