Health and Disability Policy News

The National Institutes of Health has announced changes that will now designate people with disabilities as a population with health disparities.

With the support of new $2.25 million federal grant the State of the States in Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities project is poised to build on its more than 40 years of financial information translation and dissemination to bring those data stories to new audiences.

People with disabilities are invited to participate in a national study based at the University of Kansas that aims to document their experiences with a variety of issues to understand the needs of underrepresented communities.

The KU Life Span Institute is working the state to better understand the impact to thousands of Kansans stuck on a waitlist for disability services. Researchers are looking for solutions to the current backlog as well as how to prevent future delays for essential support services.

Following National Barrier Awareness Day on May 7, we’re calling attention to several ways people with disabilities encounter obstacles in their daily lives — and why accessibility for everyone is important.

People frequently assume guardianship is the best or only option for adults with disabilities who need supports with decision making.  However, the highly restrictive nature of legal guardianship arrangements is often not well understood, and people are often unaware of how difficult and expensive guardianship arrangements can be to change.

Research by KU scientists and others has long reinforced that career development opportunities for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities provide not only financial benefits, but improved physical and mental health, and better quality of life. Researchers also have established that with appropriate supports, people with intellectual and developmental disabilities can participate in competitive integrated employment.

People with disabilities represent the nation’s single largest and fastest growing minority group, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with more than 1 in 4 adults qualifying as disabled. However, up to nearly half of this population may be uncounted.

To better understand the prevalence of disability in America and to address health disparities, the Affordable Care Act mandated that federal health surveys collect data to identify people with disabilities. But new research from the University of Kansas has found that the two most common sets of disability questions used in federal surveys are missing as many as 43% of individuals who should be counted, especially those with psychiatric disabilities or chronic health conditions.

The University of Kansas has secured a pair of grants that will enable researchers to partner with community leaders, self-advocates with disabilities, and families to help improve the transition of young people with disabilities from school to vocational training, higher education, and careers.