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How Can Philanthropy Help Dismantle Healthcare Inequities?: A Conversation with Dr. Bonnie Swenor

In this episode of Disability Inclusion: Required, host Emily Ladau welcomes Dr. Bonnie Swenor, Endowed Professor of Disability Health and Justice at the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing and Director of the Johns Hopkins Disability Health Research Center, about the many healthcare inequities that the disability community experiences due to ableism and inaccessibility. Dr. Swenor calls for philanthropy to engage with the disability community to support the development of better metrics for accurate data collection, highlighting the importance of including diverse perspectives and centering disabled people who hold multiple marginalized identities.

Our podcast theme music is by Andre Louis and Precious Perez. Thank you to Recording Artists And Music Professionals With Disabilities (RAMPD) for connecting these talented disabled musicians with the Disability & Philanthropy Forum.

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Featured Guest

Bonnielin K. Swenor, PhD, MPH

Bonnielin Swenor is an epidemiologist and the Endowed Professor of Disability Health and Justice at The Johns Hopkins School of Nursing and holds joint appointments at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She is the founder and director of the Johns Hopkins Disability Health Research Center, which aims to shift the paradigm from ‘living with a disability’ to ‘thriving with a disability’. Motivated by her personal experience with a visual disability, her work takes a data-driven approach to advancing equity for people with disabilities and promoting disability inclusion and accessibility, with a focus on improving and expanding disability data collection. Dr. Swenor has provided advice and expertise on disability data, equity, and accessibility to multiple organizations and agencies. Recently, she was a speaker at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) Summit on Equity and Excellence in STEMM, served as chair of the National Academy of Science, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) planning committee for the Disrupting Ableism and Advancing STEM series, co-chaired the NIH Advisory Committee to the Director (ACD) Subgroup on Individuals with Disabilities, and served as a member of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) ACD Health Equity Workgroup. Her work has been published in leading academic journals, such as the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), and the Lancet, and has been featured in multiple news outlets, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, and TIME magazine.