Definition
Percentage of persons who responded yes to any of the following questions:[[br]]
1. Are you blind or do you have serious difficulty seeing, even when wearing glasses?[[br]]
2. Because of a physical, mental, or emotional condition, do you have serious difficulty concentrating, remembering, or making decisions?[[br]]
3. Do you have serious difficulty walking or climbing stairs?[[br]]
4. Do you have difficulty dressing or bathing?[[br]]
5. Because of a physical, mental, or emotional condition, do you have any difficulty doing errands alone such as visiting a doctor's office or shopping?[[br]]
6. Are you deaf or do you have serious difficulty hearing?Numerator
Includes survey respondents ages 18 and older who reported said "yes" to any of the the six questions on disabilities. Excludes those with missing, don't know, and refused answers.Denominator
Includes survey respondents ages 18 and older. Excludes those with missing, don't know, or refused answers.Data Interpretation Issues
Because age affects the likelihood of having various disabilities, it is beneficial to adjust for the effect of age when comparing populations. This helps determine if certain populations have factors that contribute to disability prevalence other than the effect of age.
Beginning in 2011, BRFSS data included both landline and cell phone respondent data along with a new weighting methodology called iterative proportional fitting, or raking. This methodology utilizes additional demographic information (such as education, race, and marital status) in the weighting procedure. Both of these methodology changes were implemented to account for an increased number of U.S. households without landline phones and an under-representation of certain demographic groups that were not well-represented in the sample. More details about these changes can be found at: [https://ibis.utah.gov/ibisph-view/pdf/opha/resource/brfss/RakingImpact2011.pdf].Why Is This Important?
One in every four adults in Utah and the United States has a disability.^1^ Disability is common, and yet, the disparities and needs of this community are often unrecognized and unfulfilled. Costly health events and chronic conditions such as, stroke, asthma, heart disease, diabetes, and cancer, are all more common for those with disabilities, and basic preventive services such as cancer screenings and dental checks are less common. Not only are people with disabilities more likely to experience significant differences in their health behaviors and health status than those without a disability, they are also more likely to experience social circumstances that put them at greater risk of having poor health outcomes, e.g. lower education, lower income, food insecurity, etc. It is important to understand that many of these differences and the size of these differences are avoidable, societally based, and not solely due to the nature of disability itself.^2^
As stated by Healthy People 2020, "To be healthy, all individuals with or without disabilities must have opportunities to take part in meaningful daily activities that add to their growth, development, fulfillment, and community contribution." This will require all public health programs, organizations, and communities to find ways to include people with disabilities in program activities and healthy communities.
This can be achieved by utilizing the GRAIDs framework. A gap in the availability and accessibility of evidence-based programs led to the development of the [https://www.nchpad.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/NCHPAD_GRAIDs_2024.pdf Guidelines, Recommendations, Adaptations, Including Disability framework] (GRAIDs) by the National Centers on Health, Physical Activity and Disability (NCHPAD). The GRAIDs are an evidence-based method to adapt programs to be more inclusive of individuals with disabilities. The GRAIDs framework is applicable across programs, settings, sectors, and organizations. Applying the five GRAIDs domains will ensure accessibility and inclusion for individuals with disabilities in communities, programs, services, and organizations.[[br]]
[[br]]
----
1. Utah Department of Health and Human Services. Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), Salt Lake City: Utah Department of Health, Center for Health Data.[[br]]
2. Krahn G.H., Walker D.K., Correa-De-Araujo R. Persons with disabilities as an unrecognized health disparity population. AJPH. 2015;105:S198?S206. [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4355692/].[[br]]Other Objectives
Other Healthy People 2030 Objectives include:
*DH-01: Reduce the proportion of adults with disabilities aged 18 years and older who experience delays in receiving primary and periodic preventive care due to cost.
*0A-01: Increase the proportion of older adults with reduced physical or cognitive function who engage in light, moderate, or vigorous leisure-time physical activities.How Are We Doing?
One in every four Utah adults reports having one or more disabilities. A disability can occur at any age and most people will experience a disability at some point in their life.
The most commonly reported disability in 2023 among Utah adults was cognitive (14.7%), which means the person has difficulty concentrating, remembering, or making decisions. Mobility disability was the second most commonly reported disability (9.9%), followed by difficulty hearing/deaf (6.8%), independent living disability (i.e. inability to drive oneself to doctor appointments or run errands alone, 6.5%), difficulty seeing/blind (4.4%), and limitations in the ability to care for oneself such as dressing and bathing (i.e. self-care disability, 2.2%).
The likelihood of having a disability varies with social circumstances and geographic location. Hispanic adults (30.9%) were more likely than non-Hispanic adults to have a disability (26.4%). Adults who identify as two or more races had the highest disability rates compared to other races with 38.7% reporting a disability. Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander adults also had a higher rate of disability with 34.3% reporting a disability. Lower incomes are correlated to higher disability rates. Among Utah adults, 51.4% of those that made less than $25,000 a year had a disability compared to 19.6% of those that made more than $75,000 a year.
Local health districts with higher rates of people reporting a disability included Weber-Morgan and Southeast Utah. See the
[[a href="indicator/view/Dis.LHD.html" Local Health District data view]] for more information.
Looking at smaller geographic areas, greater variation is seen in the rate of disabilities. For example, within Salt Lake County, 41.3% of adults in South Salt Lake reported having a disability whereas 13.1% of adults had a disability in the Avenues area of Salt Lake City. See the [[a href="indicator/view/Dis.SA.html" Utah Small Area data view]] for more information.
Lastly, overall disability rates increase with age. Adults 65 years and older are much more likely to report having one or more disabilities. Among adults aged 64 and younger, women were significantly more likely than men to have a disability.How Do We Compare With the U.S.?
The age-adjusted prevalence of disability in Utah was 27.5% in 2023, which was lower than the U.S. rate of 28.6%.What Is Being Done?
Due to the need for programmatic, policy, and environmentally based inclusion strategies, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention awarded the Disability and Health Program (DHP) at the Utah Department of Health and Human Services a five-year (2021-2026) grant to increase resources and reduce disparities for people with disabilities. Quarterly meetings that guide inclusion efforts occur with the Utah Disability Advisory Committee, which is comprised of people with disabilities, public health management, and organizations that specialize in and serve people with disabilities.
Current strategies include:
*Training public health administration and staff to increase the level of inclusion and access for people with disabilities in their programs and organizations,
*Administering a training for healthcare providers on accessible preventive health care,
*Implementing a project to link adults with intellectual and other developmental disabilities to preventive health care or health promotion programs in their communities,
*Implementing and evaluating evidence-based health promotion interventions as well as policy, system and environmental (PSE) changes, and
*Developing and disseminating resources and tools to address health disparities among adults with disabilities.
[[br]]
[[br]]
A full report on health disparities experienced by Utah adults with disabilities can be found [https://healthyaging.utah.gov/data/ here].Evidence-based Practices
^ ^
Public health leaders and staff can use the [https://www.nchpad.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/NCHPAD_GRAIDs_2024.pdf GRAIDs framework] developed by the National Center on Health, Physical Activity and Disability (NCHPAD), to increase the inclusivity and accessibility of health promotion programs and services.
