Patient Care Access News

NIH Pushed to Recognize Health Disparities for People with Disabilities

UVA researchers are urging NIH and other federal agencies to acknowledge the disability community as a population impacted by health disparities, a move set to ignite crucial research.

The disability community faces many structural inequities that cause them disparities but they are yet identified as a health disparity population.

Source: Getty Images

By Sarai Rodriguez

- Researchers at the University of Virginia and Johns Hopkins University issued a call to action urging the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other federal agencies to validate the health disparities suffered by individuals with disabilities.

They argued that healthcare access is not the same for people with disabilities, largely due to the influence of structural ableism. The experience of having a disability is shaped by built, social, political, and economic environments.

As a direct offshoot of this structural ableism, people with disabilities encounter disparities across various social determinants of health.