Sonoran Center Affiliated Faculty Named 2022-2023 University of Arizona Udall Center Fellow
Since 1990, the Udall Center Fellows Program has invited UArizona faculty across campus to take a semester off from their teaching duties to focus on scholarly research that touches on some aspect of public policy.
Now in its 33rd year, the Udall Center Fellows Program is pleased to welcome four new fellows to its 2022-23 cohort, including Jamie Edgin, PhD, associate professor at the College of Science’s Department of Psychology and an affiliated faculty of the University of Arizona Sonoran Center for Excellence in Disabilities.
As an appointed member of the Arizona Developmental Disabilities Planning Council (ADDPC) between 2014-2018, Dr. Edgin was reviewing projects for inclusion in the council’s five-year strategic plan when she noticed something that sent her alarm bells ringing.
Several projects related to preventing physical or emotional abuse of persons with disabilities were on the table for potential implementation, however no programs had been proposed to prevent sexual abuse.
Though the issue of sexual abuse of persons with disabilities had been not adequately addressed by many state and national organizations, a high-profile 2019 case involving the rape of an intellectually disabled woman at Hacienda Healthcare in Phoenix forced the topic into the national spotlight.
In her fellowship proposal, Dr. Edgin writes, “From the data that are available, we now know children and adults with intellectual and developmental disorders are 7-12 times more likely to be victims of sexual abuse.”
What’s more, Dr. Edgin’s research has revealed that “people with disability and their caregivers have doubts that their reports (of abuse) would be believed” if they reported them.
During her time as a Udall Center Fellow, Dr. Edgin intends to spend her time reviewing existing state policy “focused on abuse reporting in developmental disability” and convening a working group to “determine a research solution for the problem of abuse reporting procedures in these groups.” Her project’s working title is “State Policy Review of Abuse Reporting from Developmental Disability Groups.”
All told, Dr. Edgin says her research will focus on answering a single multi-layered question: “Can we provide a solution that will help facilitate the safety of these individuals through the delivery of their reports, and alongside these methods, change the public’s perception of the validity of their reports?”
A version of this article was originally posted on udallcenter.arizona.edu/news.