The Stigma of Disease and Disability Understanding Causes and Overcoming Injustices

People with physical or mental disabilities such as HIV, substance abuse, cancer, or depression are negatively affected not only by the disease, but also by others’ negative reactions to it. This humane book prepares advocates and health care professionals to more effectively fight the social injustice of stigma and better support the families of those with disabilities.

Readers will gain a solid understanding of the common experience of stigma as well as how to combat prejudiced responses to specific disabilities, including childhood disorders, obesity, and Alzheimer’s disease.

Patrick W. Corrigan, PsyD, is Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the Illinois Institute of Technology. Prior to that, Dr. Corrigan was the executive director of the Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation at the University of Chicago, where he was also a professor of psychiatry.
 
A licensed clinical psychologist, Dr. Corrigan has been setting up and providing services for people with serious mental illnesses and their families for more than 30 years. He has been the principal investigator of federally funded studies on rehabilitation and consumer operated services. In 2001, he became principal investigator of the Chicago Consortium for Stigma Research, the only National Institute of Mental Health-funded research center examining the stigma of mental illness. (The consortium evolved into the National Consortium on Stigma and Empowerment, also supported by the National Institute of Mental Health.)
 
In 2013, Dr. Corrigan took the helm of a grant funded by the National Institutes of Health on peer navigators, meant to enhance the integrated care needs of homeless African Americans with mental illness. He has authored or edited 12 books and more than 300 articles, and is the editor of the American Journal of Psychiatric Rehabilitation.