About 12.2% of people in North Dakota have disabilities, most commonly mobility impairments. People with disabilities may have other disabilities, such as deafness and blindness, or mobility issues that make it difficult for them to live independently.

Nationally, 13.4% of Americans report having one or more disabilities, with the most common disability being mobility. Nearly 7% of Americans have medical conditions that prevent or hinder walking. Providing accessibility for people with mobility issues requires the biggest infrastructure changes, such as installing ramps and elevators in buildings, adding lifts to swimming pools and hot tubs, and creating wheelchair spaces on public transit.

Supporting these people has also driven technological advances, such as the development of ever better wheelchairs and vehicles that can be controlled by people who lack full use of their feet. In the digital world, accessibility means arranging text and buttons so that users can enlarge text or click on what they want, removing time constraints, and avoiding mandatory drag-and-drop interfaces.

Disabilities that limit people's ability to live independently (6% of Americans report this) are also common across the country. Disabilities that allow for independent living include physical or mental limitations that prevent people from running errands or doing household chores. These and disabilities in self-care most often require a caregiver, whether it's a live-in family member, a home health aide, or placement in a nursing home.

Individualized care plans, skills development training, and smart home technologies could help people with disabilities maintain their independence while living independently. In addition, flexible work schedules, remote work options, and family and medical leave can provide families with more opportunities to better support their loved ones with disabilities.

Nearly 6% of Americans have cognitive disabilities such as autism and dementia, which can cause difficulty concentrating or making decisions. To make information accessible to people with these conditions, individuals and institutions can communicate information in multiple ways: audio, text, and visual. Website interfaces can offer multiple navigation options to ensure easy access for all. Consistency, predictability, and simplicity in websites, signage, and other communication tools make them more accessible to people with these disabilities—and easier for all viewers.

Hearing impairments (which affect 3.7% of Americans) are increasingly portrayed in the media, from blockbuster movies like A Quiet Place to main characters in shows like Marvel's Hawkeye and AMC's The Walking Dead. Deaf and hard-of-hearing influencers on social media are also spreading their knowledge of American Sign Language. Closed captioning is becoming more common among people who do not have hearing impairments.

Accessibility has also improved for the visually impaired. 2.5% of Americans are visually impaired. People with partial or total blindness have more access to increasingly specific alternative text/descriptions for images, speech recognition technology, built-in testing for color blindness, and more.

Understanding the unique needs within communities is critical to eliminating bias and further improving accessibility in the physical and digital world for all Americans.

This story features data reporting and writing by Paxtyn Merten and is part of a series on data automation in 50 states and Washington DC.