Professional Associations

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Every professional association should commit to addressing the health needs of people with intellectual disabilities and provide members with training to be fully inclusive
The Problem

Over 6.5 million people in the United States (U.S.) are estimated to experience an intellectual disability, based on prevalence rates of 1 to 3 percent of the total U.S. population.

People with intellectual disabilities (ID) experience significant and life-long health disparities compared to people without disabilities. Barriers causing these disparities include delayed care due to cost and uninformed medical care, limited exercise and health promotion opportunities, and routine exclusion from community health planning.

Yet, most health-related professional associations do not include people with disabilities -- especially ID -- as a focus of their efforts or activities, and many of their members do not receive training on disability in their academic programs. For example, only about half of accredited Master of Public Health programs include disability content in their programs. In a study conducted by the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO), nearly 70% of local health departments said they needed additional training on inclusive health practices.

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Tools & Resources

Making the Case: Professional Associations

Over 6.5 million people in the United States are estimated to experience intellectual and/or developmental disabilities (IDD), based on prevalence rates of 2 to 3 percent of the total US population.1
2 Min Read
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"Our pursuit of health equity, of the breaking down of barriers that stand between any people and their achievement of their own optimal health, will only be as successful as our ability to intentionally include all people who live in the shadows of those barriers in our efforts to remove them. Inclusion is an intentional and active process. "
Tom Quade, APHA Immediate Past President
What You Can Do About It
Health-related professional associations can better serve their communities and achieve health equity for all by providing education and training to their members on intellectual disability and health topics, and providing guidance to their individual members for how to advocate for the full inclusion of people with intellectual disabilities in their fields. Strategies include:

1. Acknowledge the existing disparities
Adopt a resolution or other policy statement endorsing the importance of addressing health disparities experienced by children and adults with intellectual disabilities.

2. Educate your members
Conduct professional education, training, and information dissemination activities to increase members’ knowledge about disability, health disparity topics and strategies to address the needs of people with intellectual disabilities.

3. Advocate for inclusion of people with intellectual disabilities
Encourage individual members of health-related professional associations to advocate within their fields for the inclusion of people with intellectual disabilities as a population of focus. Encourage them to conduct their professional activities in ways that are socially, behaviorally, programmatically, and environmentally accessible to people with intellectual disabilities.

4. Advocate for curricular changes
Provide leadership and advocate for curricular changes in undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral training for health-related professions to include inclusive health practices and community health planning for people with intellectual disabilities.

5. Advocate for changes in training programs
Join with other health-related professional associations to advocate with education accrediting bodies about the importance of addressing the health needs of people with intellectual disabilities in health-related training programs.

6. Create game-changing partnerships
Engage in partnerships with disability organizations to plan and implement inclusive health activities to reduce health disparities among people with intellectual disabilities.

7. Share your successes
Encourage other professional associations to work towards inclusive health by sharing successes and lessons learned with other organizations.