Eliminating Health And Health Care Disparities Among The Growing Population Of People With Disabilities

Abstract

Fifty-four million people in the United States are now living with disabilities. That number will grow substantially in the next thirty years, as the "baby-boom" generation ages and many of today's children and young adults mature and experience complications related to overweight and obesity. This reality poses a major challenge to the health care and policy communities. People with disabilities confront disadvantages from social and environmental determinants of health, including lower educational levels, lower incomes, and higher unemployment, than people without disabilities. Those with disabilities are also much more likely to report being in fair or poor health; to use tobacco; to forgo physical activity; and to be overweight or obese. People with disabilities also experience health care disparities, such as lower rates of screening and more difficulty accessing services, compared to people without disabilities. Eliminating these multifaceted disadvantages among people with disabilities should be a critical national priority.

Implementing Health Reform: Improved Data Collection and the Monitoring of Health Disparities

“…People with disabilities experience more health care disparities, such as lower rates of screening and more difficulty accessing services, than do people without disabilities (47,87). In the absence of a department-wide standard, HHS surveys have assessed disability status in a variety of ways.…”

“…The Affordable Care Act includes obesity screening and counseling for all adults, tobacco use screening for all adults, and smoking-cessation interventions for tobacco users as covered preventive services with no cost-sharing requirements. These provisions may be particularly critical because people with disabilities are much more likely to report being in fair or poor health, to use tobacco, to forgo physical activity, and to be overweight or obese (47). The new disability status data standard will enhance the ability to use existing surveys to more accurately examine the impacts of the Affordable Care Act on persons with disabilities.…”

Development of the Children With Disabilities Algorithm

“…By using CWDA, stakeholders can explore health care quality for CWD, which is likely robust in some respects (eg, whether they receive the recommended number of well-child visits in a year), 19 yet inadequate in others (eg, whether their sexual health needs are being addressed). 4,36 If CWDA is used to examine whether CWD and non-CWD groups receive or experience differential care quality, noted differences can become the focus of investigations and interventions. …”

“…Little is known about health care quality that children with disabilities (CWD) receive. Most of what is known comes from pediatric case reports, 1,2 studies of adults with disabilities, 3,4 and descriptions of severely affected children with special health care needs (CSHCN). 5,6 A first step toward being able to rigorously assess care quality for CWD is to be able to identify CWD in claims data and to examine care quality for CWD using existing claimsbased measures of pediatric care quality (eg, well-visit rates, receipt of recommended screenings).…”

Attitude towards, contact with people with disabilities and knowledge of disability among health science undergraduates in a Nigerian university

“…This invariably limits PWDs access to quality health care, education, employment and other opportunities available within the society. A major reason ascribed for the drawbacks is negative attitude of the society toward PWDs [6][7][8][9]. Altman [10] posits that attitude, as reflections of beliefs, shapes the way society describes a person's flaws and impacts the framework within which their behavior occurs.…”