The Urban Institute’s Disability Equity Policy Initiative (DEPI) equips policymakers and practitioners with rigorous, timely, and actionable evidence needed to improve the lives of disabled people. Our vision is to make disability-informed work standard practice for research excellence and to formalize the use of disability equity analysis both within and outside of Urban.

DEPI elevates the expertise of disabled researchers and incubates original research in collaboration with disability advocates to highlight challenges facing disabled people. We engage experts and advocates in the wider disability field to surface opportunities for research and analysis that align with broader policy and practice efforts. 

DEPI has advised and convened partners in disability-focused work and have helped drive conversations on issues that affect disabled people. Today DEPI leads responses on fast-emerging policy developments across housing, education, healthcare, data collection, workforce, social safety nets, disaster response, etc., and provides evidence on the implications these changes may have for disabled adults and children.

DEPI is housed in Urban’s Center for Equity and Community Impact (CECI) and is led and managed predominantly by staff who identify as disabled. DEPI uses an intersectional lens to thread disability across other dimensions of equity such as race, ethnicity, and gender and works closely with Urban’s Community Engagement Resource Center (CERC) to center the voices and priorities of disabled communities. 

To contact the DEPI team with questions or potential collaboration opportunities, please reach out to [email protected].

The Disability Equity Policy Initiative is currently funded by the Ford Foundation and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. We are grateful to them and to all funders, who make it possible for Urban to advance its mission. The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders. Funders do not determine research findings or the insights and recommendations of Urban experts.