We have just completed a major international review of research that will help government, researchers, and services improve access to healthcare for people with intellectual disability.
Our findings have been published in an academic journal. Access the research article.
Download an Easy Read version of the research.
What we did
We searched for studies that have been published nationally and internationally.
We read all the studies we found and put together the key findings from them.
What we found
We found that access to healthcare depends on a lot of things.
It depends on
- The resources that healthcare professionals have
- The support that people with intellectual disability have
- The way that support networks and healthcare professionals work together
- We also found that experiences of discrimination are still very common in healthcare access
Our recommendations
Based on what we found, we think that
- Healthcare professionals and support networks need to work together to support healthcare access
- People with intellectual disability should be provided with the right supports in their healthcare journey
- We need to address discrimination in the healthcare system and by healthcare professionals
What’s next
We hope to use the findings from this study to design strategies that will address some the barriers to access we found.
For example, we found poor communication was a major barrier. To address this, we need to make resources easily available for healthcare professionals to use in their work and bring awareness about different ways of communicating.
We also found that both people with intellectual disability and support networks want more information about health services and treatments. The Centre is working to create this information.
We hope this work will lay a foundation for further work by the Centre and other people around the world who want to improve the health and wellbeing of people with intellectual disability.
Find out more
- Access the full article
- Download an Easy Read version of the research
- This research was undertaken as part of our preventive health project
