People with Disabilities Receive Health Disparity Population Designation

This week, the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) designated people with disabilities as a population with health disparities for research supported by the National Institutes of Health.

The advisory council recommended that NIMHD “move quickly to develop a mechanism to organize, oversee, and stimulate research on disparities experienced by people with disabilities.” The decision was made in recognition of a recent report from the NIMHD advisory council recognizing the need for greater focus on research related to:

• The prevalence, cause, and consequence of bias, discrimination, and identity across cognitive and medical conditions.
• Which conditions among persons living with disabilities are associated with poorer quality health and health care and why.
• The intersection of disability with current health disparity populations impacts health outcomes.

ANCOR has been following the developments related to the health disparity population designation and has previously signed a coalition letter in support of the designation.