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Everyone has the same right to health.
Don't wait for someone else to make it happen.
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This resource provides principles and strategies to help you ensure the full and sustainable inclusion of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) in health policies and laws, programming, services, training programs, research, and funding streams.
Special Olympics - June 6, 2022
The National Institutes for Health (NIH) recently designated people with disabilities as a population with health disparities. The designation formally recognizes what the disability community has long known: that people with disabilities experience poorer health outcomes compared to the general population.
Special Olympics - June 6, 2022

Why Inclusive Health?

People with any developmental disability represent up to 16.65% of the US population, with people with intellectual and developmental disability (IDD) representing about 1%.1 Due to stigma and a long history of institutionalization, many Americans have never met a person with IDD. This includes many health care providers, public health officials, and policymakers.

People with IDD face a range of systemic challenges, including inadequate provider training and inaccessible facilities, and they have less access to quality health care and health promotion programs. As a result, people with IDD experience dramatically higher rates of preventable disease, chronic pain and suffering, and premature death than the general population.
Health Disparities

2X

People with IDD are twice as likely to die prematurely1

14%

Adults with IDD have obesity at a 14% higher rate2

3 in 5

As many as 3 in 5 people with IDD may have a co-occurring mental health condition3
What is Inclusive Health?

To Special Olympics, inclusive health means that people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) have equitable access to affordable, quality health services. It means that people with IDD are empowered to take an active role in deciding their health and life choices to be as healthy as possible.

To make inclusive health a reality we must address health disparities by adapting mainstream health policies and laws, programming, and services, training programs, research, and funding streams.

Inclusive Health Overview
Everyone has the same right to health. Learn why inclusive health is needed and why it takes a collective effort to make it happen.

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Your Role in Inclusive Health

Individuals and organizations across the health ecosystem can take action to remove barriers and improve access for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities to their services, as their patients, constituents, and clients.
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