Vocational Rehabilitation and Long COVID-19: Utilizing a Matrix for Multi-Level Interventions

Long COVID-19 is a general term for a new chronic health condition that results from acute COVID-19 infection. Several unbounded, disabling physical and/or psychiatric symptoms manifest in very individualized ways. Vocational rehabilitation clients with Long COVID can face a variety of barriers to employment, like other individuals with disabilities, and as a result of the presence of an unfamiliar and new condition. The Rehabilitation Research Matrix (RRM) is a sociological framework that identifies micro, meso, and macro level actors in rehabilitation service provision as intersecting entities, with the power to influence actors in the other levels. The author describes how the RRM can be used as an empowering, collaborative tool in program evaluation, research, policy development, and treatment planning for vocational rehabilitation clients with Long COVID