Grant: Planning and Dissemination Grant - Institute Community Support

People with intellectual disabilities consistently experience high levels of health disparities, including overweight and obesity, and low levels of physical activity. Further, people with disabilities use health care services more than the population with typical development at a cost of approximately 3 times as much. Very little is known at the population level about the health of people with intellectual disability across the lifespan. Most people with intellectual disabilities today live in community settings and access the general health care system; therefore health professionals need accurate information on health concerns both current and future for both treatment and prevention for this population.This project will build active and meaningful collaborations amongst researchers, public health officials, community stakeholders, medical professionals, and knowledge users to promote the health of individuals with intellectual disabilities.The outcome of the meeting will be a draft of a strategic analysis and dissemination plan of available health information in the Special Olympics International Healthy Athletes Database to address existing gaps in the literature and inform a large scale secondary data analysis grant.