Public Health is for Everyone An inclusive planning toolkit for public health professionals

About 1 in 4, or 61 million, U.S. adults reports having some form of a disability. Disability is part of the human experience, but sometimes people use words or phrases that are insensitive and do not promote understanding, dignity, and respect for people with disabilities. Most often than not, this is not intentional, but is disrespectful just the same. Use this factsheet to learn more about plain language and tips for communicating with and about people with disabilities.

Adults with disabilities experience significant health disparities compared to adults without disabilities. To improve the health of this population, state epidemiologists, researchers and public health professionals need access to accurate and timely data to inform their state’s health promotion activities. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) created Disability and Health Data System (DHDS) to provide quick and easy access to data on demographics and health information for adults with disabilities. Learn more about DHDS in this informative factsheet.

The CDC-funded New Hampshire Disability and Public Health project (DPH) is a collaboration between the University of New Hampshire Institute on Disability and NH Division of Public Health Services. The project goal, to promote and maximize health, prevent chronic disease, improve emergency preparedness and increase the quality of life among people with disabilities, is achieved through activities that focus on infusing disability components into existing public health programs and initiatives.

Adults with disabilities living in rural areas typically rely on services that are more informal and less specialized. They must travel farther and pay more for those services, and they tend to receive lower quality care than their urban counterparts. Local health departments play a crucial role in filling resource and service gaps that face rural America. This resources provides five approaches health departments can follow to promote the health and well-being of people with disabilities who live in rural areas.

The card is to assist Medical Professionals and Deaf and hard of hearing individuals communicate better regarding assessment of COVID-19 symptoms. Deaf or hard of hearing individuals can use the icons to help communicate their preferred method of communication, symptoms, severity, and time frame of symptoms.

New York State Department of Health 

The New Hampshire Disability & Public Health Project (DPH) is a collaboration between the New Hampshire Division of Public Health Services and its Bona Fide Agent, the Institute on Disability (IOD) at the University of New Hampshire. The overarching goal of the collaboration is to improve the health and quality of life of people with disabilities in NH by strengthening the capacity of the state's public health programs and initiatives to include people with intellectual disabilities and mobility limitations.

The Responsive Practice training is online, on-demand, free for a limited time, and eligible for continuing education & continuing medical education credits. Responsive Practice enhances health care providers' ability to deliver culturally competent, accessible care to people with intellectual, mobility, and other disabilities. This training focuses on accessible and adaptive communication for patients with disabilities.

This website contains a list of materials and resources to assist physicians in healthcare to gain an understanding of the health and development of individuals with disabilities.

The Developmental Disabilities Primary Care Program is a program of Surrey Place, Toronto. Surrey Place provides specialized clinical services to children and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities in the Toronto Region. Surrey Place is affiliated with the University of Toronto and other academic institutions and is a teaching site for students in a variety of health care professions.

Surrey Place

At Let's Go!, we believe that children with intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD) deserve the same opportunities to lead healthy lives as those offered to typically developing children. To ensure our 5-2-1-0 programs are inclusive of all children, we've developed a toolkit for Children with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (I/DD) to address their unique needs. These tools are specifically designed for professionals such as yourself who work with children with I/DD and they complement our multi-setting 5-2-1-0 programs. Registered sites in Maine and Mount Washington Valley, New Hampshire, receive a free hard-copy toolkit. For all others, Let's Go! offers free online access to our Developmental Disabilities (I/DD) toolkit in an easy-to-use format, as well as printable PDFs of individual pages.