Committee for Health Sustainability

Formerly IDEA Committee

ASCIP Mission Statement

To optimize the health and wellness of individuals with SCI/D through advanced interdisciplinary education, professional development and scientific research.

Committee Mission Statement

Promote opportunity, teamwork and collaboration for all people with SCI/D to live a healthy life.

Our Purpose Statement

Ensure that ASCIP’s activities, operation, policies, communications, services and products are available to all by promoting practices that meet the needs of people with SCI/D.

Foster an environment in SCI/D care that considers the many individual experiences, barriers, positions, values, and beliefs of patients and SCI/D professionals.

Using these guiding principles, the strategies implemented will serve as a role-model to enhance opportunities for learning and self growth globally for all.

Click Here to view the Committee members.

The Health Sustainability Award

The ASCIP Health Sustainability (HS) Award encompasses the social systems, environmental factors, public health practices, and community supports that maintain and enhance the well-being, functioning, and long-term health of individuals within the SCI/D community. Relevant topics include the lived experiences, barriers, positionality, values, and beliefs of people within this community.

The award honors work that makes a significant contribution to advancing our understanding of HS. Recipients demonstrate culturally informed thinking and promote practices that meaningfully address the needs of people with SCI/D. The award seeks to elevate efforts that close gaps in HS knowledge, data, and skills.

Recognized work is innovative and impactful, addressing systemic issues and barriers at the international, national, and/or local level. Ultimately, this award highlights contributions that create opportunities for advocates of HS to be heard, acknowledged, and celebrated.

Past award winners:

2022: Raheleh Ghasseminia MS, OTR/L, “The Intimate Justice framework: Interrogating inequity for sexuality outcomes in women post spinal injury.”

2023: Jenny Kiratli PhD, “Social support and community engagement for LGBTQ+ persons who live with spinal cord injury.”

2024: Megan Neal, PhD “Queering caregiving: Sexual and gender minorities with spinal cord injuries and their relationships with caregivers”

In troubled times, mental health hygiene is more vital than ever

January 17, 2024

In troubled times, mental health hygiene is more vital than ever As an organization that advocates for not only the physical needs of those with spinal cord injury/disorders (SCI/D) but also the emotional and psychological wellbeing of individuals with SCI/D, ASCIP's Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access (IDEA) committee holds close our commitment to advocacy for patients and their communities. We acknowledge how collective trauma can impact many of those in the SCI/D community that have experienced violence firsthand as well as those of us who provide care. Our brains tend to engage in behavioral patterns in response to life events and trauma is no exception. Recent exposure to, or witnessing/hearing about, trauma events can trigger renewed experience of historical traumatic events. With these trauma triggers, come the memories and emotions that accompany them. The complexity of the dynamic interplay between mind and body triggers the fight-flight-freeze-fawn part of our nervous system. Add in multiple triggers daily, and we have an exhaustion of emotional internal resources and physical energy. ...