Recap: Access to medication
An Overview of the June 2026 Understanding Ableism Webinar: “Medications & Access”
By Sara Marshall, AmeriCorps KCDC Coordinator
(Watch the webinar here on our YouTube channel.)
The June 2026 Understanding Ableism webinar explored medications and access, examining the many barriers that shape how disabled people navigate healthcare systems and obtain the medications they need. While medications can play an important role in supporting health, independence and quality of life, access to those medications is often influenced by factors far beyond an individual's medical needs. Cost, insurance requirements, transportation, provider relationships, housing stability and stigma can all affect whether someone is able to obtain and maintain consistent care.
For many disabled individuals, navigating healthcare is not a straightforward process. Accessing medications often requires ongoing interaction with complex systems that may be difficult to understand, inconsistent in their requirements or unresponsive to individual circumstances. These barriers rarely exist in isolation. Instead, they often overlap and reinforce one another, creating additional challenges for those already managing disabilities, chronic illnesses or mental health conditions.
The webinar invited participants to think beyond medications themselves and consider the broader systems that determine who receives care, how that care is delivered and what happens when access is disrupted. Through both lived and professional perspectives, panelists highlighted the realities of navigating healthcare systems while emphasizing the importance of advocacy, community support and accessible resources.
Background on Panelists
Hannah Glover is a Health Navigator at Elizabeth Gregory Home, where she helps guests navigate medical and behavioral healthcare systems and connect with services that meet their individual needs. Drawing from her experience working directly with individuals facing housing instability and complex healthcare challenges, Glover discussed the practical realities of navigating healthcare systems and the barriers that can prevent people from accessing consistent care and medication.
Olivia Nawal McCollum is a third-year PhD student in Epidemiology at the University of Washington and a research assistant with the Center for Firearm Injury Prevention. Her academic work focuses on public health, health outcomes and healthcare systems, while her advocacy centers on increasing representation of disabled women in STEM and health research. Drawing from both professional expertise and lived experience as a woman with an invisible disability, McCollum reflected on how healthcare systems and research structures shape access, trust and health outcomes for disabled individuals.
Cynthia Coffin is a Program Coordinator at Disability Empowerment Center and has extensive experience in disability advocacy and systems-level change. With a background in social work and legislative advocacy, Coffin discussed the structural barriers that affect healthcare access and emphasized the importance of self-advocacy, community resources and disability-led perspectives in improving healthcare systems.
Key Takeaways
Throughout the discussion, panelists emphasized that access to medications extends far beyond simply obtaining a prescription. While medications are often viewed as individual healthcare interventions, access is shaped by a wide range of social, economic and institutional factors. Insurance coverage, provider availability, transportation, housing stability, income and the ability to navigate complex healthcare systems all influence whether people can consistently obtain the medications they need.
A major theme of the conversation was the cumulative nature of barriers. Panelists discussed how obstacles rarely occur in isolation. Instead, challenges such as insurance denials, prior authorization requirements, inaccessible transportation, provider shortages and financial constraints often interact with one another. For many disabled individuals, these overlapping barriers create additional burdens that can make maintaining health significantly more difficult.
The discussion also highlighted the role of advocacy in navigating healthcare systems. Panelists reflected on the importance of self-advocacy, peer support, healthcare navigators and community organizations in helping individuals understand their options and access available resources. At the same time, they acknowledged that successful navigation often depends on knowledge, time, energy and support systems that may not be equally available to everyone.
Another recurring theme was the importance of lived experience in conversations about healthcare access. Panelists noted that healthcare policies, research and service delivery models are often developed without sufficient input from the people most directly affected by them. As a result, systems may fail to account for the realities of managing disabilities, chronic illnesses or mental health conditions in everyday life. The discussion emphasized the value of including disabled people in decision-making processes and recognizing lived experience as an important source of expertise.
Across the conversation, panelists consistently underscored that medications and healthcare access are deeply connected to broader questions of equity, autonomy and participation. While medications can support health and wellbeing, meaningful access requires systems that are responsive to the diverse realities of the people they serve. Improving healthcare access is not solely about increasing the availability of medications, but also about addressing the barriers that determine whether individuals can reliably obtain, afford and use them.