People With Disabilities Become a “Health Disparity Population”
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has officially designated another group of Americans, people with disabilities, as "a population with health disparities for research." Dr. Eliseo Pérez-Stable, director of the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD), said:
"Toward this effort, NIMHD and other NIH institutes launched a new research program to better understand the health disparities faced by people with disabilities who are also part of other populations designated as having health disparities."
The announcement was important because compared to the health status of most Americans, people living with disabilities experience significant disparities in their morbidity, mortality, and overall survival rates. The NIH is the world's largest single public funder of biomedical research. Adding disabled Americans to the designation list encourages researchers to study health issues and unmet health needs specific to people living with disabilities. Disability advocates who fought hard for the designation expect the possibility of new funding avenues will spark researchers to vie for support for studies to improve treatment and outcomes for disabled people and make workplaces, healthcare facilities, and public spaces more accessible and inclusive. They also expect it will increase the inclusion of people with disabilities in clinical trials.
Other NIH-designated populations with health disparities include:
Racial and ethnic minority groups.
People with lower socioeconomic status.
Underserved rural communities.
Sexual and gender minority groups.
Social Health Research founder Joe Luzi applauds the decision and congratulates advocates for disabled people on their hard-fought victory. "SHR and SHX Foundation are committed to making the US a country where everyone has a fair and just opportunity to be as healthy as possible. For this to happen, all populations experiencing health disparities need to have a seat at the table, be included in research to understand their unmet needs better, and studies to improve their treatment and outcomes."