BACKGROUND: Visual impairment following traumatic brain injury (TBI) is common, but little research has been conducted regarding employment outcomes for individuals with combined TBI and visual impairment. OBJECTIVE:The purpose of this study was to determine whether service-related factors, including vocational rehabilitation (VR) agency service strategies, and consumer personal characteristics are associated with competitive employment and job quality for this population. METHOD: Rehabilitation Services Administration Case Service Report data from fiscal years 2013-2015 was combined with VR agency interview data about strategies utilized for providing services to these consumers. Multilevel modeling was used to determine the predictive ability of nine state/agency-level and 27 individual-level variables. RESULTS: Two service strategies were significantly associated with competitive employment: "staff with dual expertise" and "staff training on TBI." Service strategies were not associated with job quality. Ten individual-level factors were significantly associated with competitive employment and eight were significantly associated with job quality. CONCLUSIONS: Having staff with dual expertise in TBI and visual impairment was a strong predictor of competitive employment; educating staff about TBI was also important. VR agencies are encouraged to educate their staff who work with consumers with visual impairment about TBI, including developing expertise in one or more staff members.

Introduction: This study utilized data from the 2014 Survey of Disability and Employment (SDE) to examine personal characteristics that influenced employment after disability onset for people who are visually impaired (i.e., those who are blind or have low vision). Method: The selected sample from the SDE data set included 131 individuals who are visually impaired, had disability onset after age 14 years, and worked before their disability onset. Logistic regression was used to examine working after disability onset associated with age at disability onset, years since disability onset, gender, race, education, receipt of government disability benefits, self-reported health, encouragement received to work, additional disabilities, and the interaction between age at disability onset and years since disability onset. Results: Persons who were female, received government benefits, and had multiple disabilities were less likely to work after disability onset; persons who had more sources of encouragement were more likely to work after disability onset. Age at disability onset interacted with time since disability onset; as age increased, odds of working after disability onset increased but only for persons who had their disability for at least 4 years. Discussion: Persons with newly acquired disabilities may need time to adjust to their disability and learn new skills that allow them to continue employment. Information about how employment may influence receipt of government benefits would be helpful to persons evaluating their options regarding continuing employment. Implications for practitioners: A person who has not worked after recent disability onset may be adjusting to life with a disability and may return to work in the future. Encouragement to work from both service providers and family members made a meaningful difference in employment retention after disability onset, and this is an area that vocational rehabilitation professionals can influence.

Introduction: The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of visual impairment and correctable visual impairment (i.e., uncorrected refractive errors) on being out of the labor force and on unemployment. The effect of health on labor force status was also investigated. Method: National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) data from 1999 to 2008 ( N = 15,650) was used for this study. Participants were classified into three vision status groups: normal, correctable visual impairment, and visual impairment. Statistical analyses utilized were chi-square and logistic regression. Results: Having a visual impairment was significantly associated with being out of the labor force, while having a correctable visual impairment was not. Conversely, having a correctable visual impairment was associated with unemployment, while having a visual impairment was not. Being out of the labor force was not significantly associated with health for those with a visual impairment, although it was for those with correctable visual impairments and normal vision. Discussion: Given previous research, it was surprising to find that health was not associated with being out of the labor force for those with visual impairments. Perhaps other disadvantages for the people with visual impairments identified in this study contributed to their higher out-of-the-labor-force rates regardless of health. Implications for practitioners: Researchers utilizing national data sets that rely on self-reports to identify visual impairments should realize that some of those who self-identify as being visually impaired may actually have correctable visual impairments. Current research is needed to understand why a majority of people with visual impairments are not seeking employment and have removed themselves from the labor force.

No abstract

The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act emphasizes promoting high-quality, competitive employment for people served by vocational rehabilitation (VR), but few studies have assessed VR consumers’ job quality. The purpose of this study was to investigate job quality and factors that predict the job quality of VR consumers with blindness or low vision (B/LV), taking into consideration their employment status at application. We utilized RSA-911 data of VR consumers with B/LV who were closed in competitive employment during 2015, creating two separate hierarchical linear models to predict job quality for VR consumers (a) who were employed at application and (b) who were not employed at application. We investigated individual-level (consumer personal characteristics and VR services) and state/agency-level predictors. Job quality and some predictors of job quality differed by employment status at application, although the strongest predictors (education level at application, gender, benefit receipt at application, receipt of a bachelor’s or higher degree) were consistent across the models. While several additional individual-level variables were significantly associated with job quality, their effect sizes were very small. With the exception of advancing education to a bachelor’s degree or higher while receiving services, consumer characteristics at application were the primary determinants of their job quality.