Boston Globe supports Disabilities as a Disparity

The Boston Globe
Editorial
June 9, 2009

What 'access' really means
PUBLIC HEALTH officials have long recognized - and tried to eliminate - the sharp disparities in health among racial and ethnic minorities. But there is another group as well that ranks well below average on many measures of health: people with disabilities. When the state launched its universal access to healthcare law in 2006, it created a council to monitor and correct health disparities. The Legislature should pass a bill that would have the council address the barriers to good health faced by people with disabilities, as well as other minorities.
According to a report released this spring by the Disability Policy Consortium, adults with disabilities have four times the average risk of developing diabetes and a 20 percent higher risk of obesity. The diagnosis of cancer in a late stage is 41 percent more common among people with disabilities than in the population at large.
The report shows that it is not enough for health facilities to comply with the physical access and other requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act. People with disabilities face other obstacles in getting the medical attention and education they need. The report deplores health programs and systems "that lack the cultural competency to provide appropriate healthcare services and education to people with disabilities."
Insurance coverage for nearly 98 percent of the population is an impressive achievement by the state, but the persistence of disparities in health outcomes and at-risk behaviors indicates that a strictly medical model for providing care is insufficient. Public and private health providers have to address the needs of people with disabilities from the broader social perspectives that they have already begun to use with racial and ethnic minorities.
© Copyright 2009 Globe Newspaper Company.
Click here to download the report, Disabilites and Disparities.