Assessing Evidence-Based Disability Inclusion Policy and Practices to Promote Employment of People With Disabilities in the Workplace: Scale Development and Validation.

This article focuses on the development and validation of the Disability Inclusion Profiler (DIP23), a 23-item tool designed to assess disability inclusion policies and practices within organizations. The study, involving 466 U.S. human resource managers, identified two key factors in disability inclusion: executive-level policies and middle management/staff-level practices, both showing strong reliability and positive correlations with employment rates of people with disabilities. The DIP23 offers rehabilitation counselors and employers a psychometrically sound measure to evaluate and improve disability inclusion climates, supporting efforts to increase workforce representation of people with disabilities. Findings emphasize the critical role of executive leadership in driving effective disability inclusion and highlight the need for explicit inclusion of disability in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies.