This year, United Spinal Association proudly celebrates 80 years of service to the disability community.

Our story began in 1946, when a group of paralyzed WWII veterans banded together to lead a charge for greater civil rights and independence. Our fight for the past 80 years has been to help our community thrive while making the world more accessible. Our future is our community’s future: We’re working to make healthcare, the built environment, technology and disability-specific knowledge and resources more accessible for everyone.

In honor of the next 80 years, we're launching four initiatives to move our community forward.

Make Accessibility Part of Good Design

For decades, United Spinal has been transforming communities, starting right here in New York City. Through landmark legal victories, we've made the city install curb ramps at over 162,000 street corners and fought to make subway stations, taxis, and buses accessible to wheelchair users opening up the city for thousands of people with disabilities.

Our Accessibility Services team has partnered with stadiums, universities, zoos, museums, apartment buildings, and hotels to ensure everyone can fully participate in public life.

We're consulting with developers and construction managers across the country to build accessibility into projects from the ground up and training the next generation of architects to make inclusive design the standard, not an afterthought.

Transform Healthcare for Wheelchair Users

When our founders began advocating for veterans 80 years ago, accessible healthcare was already a fight. Today, it still is and your support helps us win it.

Our members tell us the same stories again and again: "My doctor doesn't understand spinal cord injury." "I haven't been weighed in years—my clinic doesn't have an accessible scale." Research confirms what they experience daily: too many healthcare providers still lack the knowledge, equipment, and attitudes needed to serve people with disabilities with dignity.

Your investment is changing the system from within. Through our Health Access Initiative, we're:

Partnering with universities to establish disability education standards for medical and dental schools; training tomorrow's doctors today
Working with healthcare facilities to remove physical barriers that prevent quality care
Equipping wheelchair users with toolkits to advocate for themselves and transform care in their own communities

Connect Newly Injured Wheelchair Users with Needed Resources
Make Disability Awareness Part of Organizational Culture

Celebrating 80 Years of Service to the Disability Community

By United Spinal Association

Celebrating 80 Years of Service to the Disability Community