Learning disabilities and inequality
People with learning disabilities experience significant inequalities across multiple domains of life. Life expectancy is an important indicator of population health and studies have shown that people with learning disabilities have a shorter life expectancy than people in the general population. The recent Confidential Inquiry into the Premature Deaths of People with Learning Disabilities (2013)[1] found that people with learning disabilities die much earlier than people in the general population and that many of these deaths were preventable. Figures from the 2011 Scotland census show that the prevalence rate of learning disabilities decreases by 40% from 0.5% among people under the age of 55 down to 0.3% among people aged over 55.
Research shows that people with learning disabilities experience multiple co-existing health conditions at rates significantly higher than those in the general population [2]. The health inequalities experienced by people with learning disabilities can also be seen in Scotland’s 2011 census data [3]. For example, when asked about their health, only 15% of people with learning disabilities rated their health as very good, compared with 52% of all people. On the other hand, 16% of people with learning disabilities rated their health as either bad or very bad compared to only 5% of the general population. Furthermore, 25% of people with learning disabilities had 3 or more disabling long-term conditions, aside from learning disabilities, compared with only 2% of all people.
Health status by learning disabilities in Scotland 2011
Click on graph to expand
In the 0-15 age group this difference is even starker with only 19.7% of children/young people with learning disabilities rating their health as very good, compared with 83.6% of all children, and 35.4% of children/young people with learning disabilities reported to have 3 or more disabling long-term conditions compared to only 0.3% of the total population.
More information about the health of people with learning disabilities in Glasgow City is available on the Scottish Learning Disabilities Observatory.
[1] Heslop P, Blair P, Fleming P et al (2013) Confidential Inquiry into the Premature Deaths of People with Learning Disabilities: Final Report. www.bris.ac.uk/cipold [Last accessed January 12th 2016]
[2] Cooper, S-A., McLean, G., Guthrie, B., McConnachie, A., Mercer, S., Sullivan, F., and Morrison, J., (2015). Multiple physical and mental health comorbidity in adults with intellectual disabilities: population-based cross-sectional analysis. BMC family Practice, 16, 110
[3] www.sldo.ac.uk
