Locations of Employment Services and People With Disabilities

Abstract

Vocational Rehabilitation (VR) services and One-Stop Career Centers (One-Stops) are the 2 principal public services intended to increase the employment rates of people with disabilities through employment and training services. As a first step in assessing accessibility of the locations of employment services, this study compared the location of VRs and One-Stops with areas of high numbers of nonemployment among people with disabilities and high numbers of unemployment in the general population. Using geographic information science and the spatial technique of the Local Indicators of Spatial Association (LISA), we analyzed the locations of the 2 programs and the concentrations of nonemployed people with disabilities at national and intrastate scales. We found that areas with high numbers of nonemployed people with disabilities are geographically underserved by both VRs and One-Stops, which raises questions about site selection and geographic accessibility.