The Health of People with Intellectual Disability
1Queensland Centre for Intellectual and Developmental Disability, School of Medicine, the University of Queensland, QLD, Australia
2Primary Health Care for People with Intellectual Disabilities, Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
3Centre for Developmental Disability Health Victoria, VIC, Australia
4Centre for Disability Studies, Sydney Medical School, University of Sydney, NSW, Australia
5Disability Specialist Unit, The Children's Hospital at Westmead and Clinical Lecturer, Discipline of Paediatrics and Child Health, University of Sydney, NSW, Australia
6Children Youth and Women's Health Service, SA, Australia
The Health of People with Intellectual Disability
Description
People with intellectual disability represent 2.7% of total population worldwide and are more likely to have poorer health than others in the community. However, this is often unrecognized. Adults with intellectual disability die some 5–20 years younger than the general population, have an average of 5.4 medical conditions which are often undiagnosed or poorly managed, and have high rates of conditions such as, dental disease, mental illness, and nutritional disorders including obesity. Both children and adults with intellectual disability are recognised to have significant unmet needs and are underrepresented in research.
This stark inequality arises from a range of factors including communication difficulties between health professionals and patients, high rates of complex health problems, and inadequate time, knowledge, and skills in this area among health professionals in the generic health system. Additionally, there are few specialised intellectual disability health services to support the mainstream; health promotion and research seldom take into account their specific needs, in addition to lack of governmental coordination. Furthermore, poverty and inadequate access to subsidised health services further reduce the accessibility of medical and allied health services for people with intellectual disability.
We invite investigators to contribute original research articles and reviews which will stimulate greater understanding of the health of this population with a view to develop clear directions for policy makers and health practitioners. We are particularly interested in articles describing new and creative approaches to improve the health of this population. Potential topics which focus on people with intellectual disability may include, but are not limited to:
- Clinical practices
- Allied health programs
- Health policy research
- Clinical trials or other health intervention research
- Support worker or organizational responses
- General practice responses
Before submission authors should carefully read over the journal's Author Guidelines, which are located at http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijfm/guidelines/. Prospective authors should submit an electronic copy of their complete manuscript through the journal Manuscript Tracking System at http://mts.hindawi.com/ according to the following timetable: