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Health and wellness for everyone
When I recently attended the annual meeting of the Maryland State Bar Association as a member of its board of governors, I noticed health and wellness features within the program for the conference.
This reminded me that not all of us can simply access health care.
National Minority Health Month, as well as other special emphasis efforts, seek improved access and quality of our health through activities, campaigns, and even substantive policy dialogue. The 2023 theme encompasses: “Better Health Through Better Understanding.” So, for all of us who work in this demanding and stressful profession, let us commit that we will individually and collectively as a profession undertake steps to know our health and wellness better and therefore to be active managers in our care.
Even with the perceived social status of the law, a person with a disability, such as a woman with a disability, may not be able equally to access the exam table for a physical or for a gynecological exam.
Many women, in particular women with disabilities across multiple identities, encounter disproportionate harm from heart disease, such as that caused by hypertension. They also encounter disparities with maternal health care.
People with disabilities encounter barriers to and disparities within the health care system. Inaccessible and unusable examination equipment, such as inaccessible and unusable exam tables at doctors’ offices that fail to adjust to the patient with a disability, have a documented deleterious effect upon people with disabilities, including, women with disabilities.
Those barriers are compounded by a lack of overall positive attitudes by some health care professionals about disabilities. COVID-19 spotlighted these negative attitudes across various minority populations, sometimes resulting in harm.
Barriers increase in magnitude, in some circumstances, if multiple demographics or identities are involved. Women with disabilities are recognized as “doubly disabled” due to disability but also because of gender bias.
Law and policy can certainly be one tool in addressing health care inequities. For instance, the Affordable Care Act provides an impactful anti-discrimination provision that complements or even adds to anti-discrimination requirements related to health care found in existing laws, including, the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended.
To address these intractable health care inequities or disparities, a policy strategy may be required that fosters dialogue and perhaps leads to further substantive lawmaking. The National Council on Disabilities issued a Framework for Healthcare Equity related to people with disabilities. Certainly, professional associations, such as our bar associations, can also actively undertake soft efforts to promote health and wellness.
To this end, I observed early morning yoga sessions at the annual conference. Many people without disabilities may not know that such fitness and sports adaptations exist. These include, for example, adaptive rowing in which I have participated. I have also studied yoga.
To its credit, the blindness community seems to promote preventive health and wellness more than it has in the past. Yet notable disparities remain. While many of us are probably not seeking a physical gymnasium like we once did, exchanging this for our homes, many gymnasiums still require affirmative education on disability.
As a last resort, an aggressive nudge by litigation under Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 may be required. Physical and mental health are indeed intertwined.
Arguably, many lawyers with disabilities suffer accumulated trauma through outright access denials because of our service animal, discrimination in job opportunities, including in terms of disclosure of our disability for accommodations, as well as subtle acts of exclusion.
I am convinced that almost any physical disability has a mental health challenge, perhaps even arising to a disability. Specifically, a notable effort has occurred in recent years to bring law and policy related to physical health and law and policy related to mental health into parity.
In addition, I have turned to alternative health practices, including yoga. A national group, Mindfulness in Law Society, provides resources to legal professionals in practicing mind-based alternative health practices.
In conclusion, let me wish you, my readers, good health, and wellness. Indeed, I should check my blood pressure with my “talking” blood pressure cuff. Bowie and I need to go for a walk! And if you are inclined, I nowadays have a heavy bag in my basement you can hit with me.
Gary C. Norman, Esq., LL.M., is a past chair of the Maryland Commission on Civil Rights. He can be reached at (410) 241-6745.
