The United States has been experiencing intense wildfires and is expecting an increase in hurricane activity during the coming months.

August is National Immunization Awareness Month (NIAM). This annual observance highlights the importance of receiving recommended vaccines throughout your life.

 The Latest from CDC: As we learn more about the Delta variant, CDC has updated its masking guidance for people who are vaccinated. Here is what you need to know:

Communicating clearly and effectively about a community-based organization’s capabilities removes one of the biggest barriers to health care contracting for aging and disability community-based organizations (CBOs), allowing for successful cross-sector partnerships and healthier communities. A new toolkit guides aging and disability CBOs seeking partnerships and conducting outreach with potential health care partners.

The ACL Policy Round Up is a new blog feature intended to help the aging and disability networks stay informed about new policies (and policy changes) that impact our work, and to ensure our networks are aware of opportunities to provide input on issues that affect older adults and people with disabilities. Please let us know what you think! This first round-up includes some highlights from the last few weeks.  

ACL's

ASPE/BHDAP Announces $1.5 Million Investment in ID/DD Data Infrastructure

Equal access to health care is one of the rights guaranteed by the Americans with Disabilities Act. In this guest blog, Mary Willard, Director of Training and Technical Assistance for the Association of Programs for Rural Independent Living (APRIL), talks about how Centers for Independent Living are working to ensure people with disabilities have equal access to COVID-19 vaccinations. 

Today, we wrap up our month-long celebration of the 31st anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act. We hope you have enjoyed the blog posts and events, and that the information, tools, and other resources we have been sharing from across the federal government have been helpful. Before we close, we have a few more things to share: