Adults with disabilities were more likely to delay medical care because of the pandemic, a new study finds.
The study, published in the latest Health Affairs issue, looked at data from the 2020 National Health Interview Survey, examining the impact COVID-19 had on adult access to care. An existing lack of data on disability limits understanding of the impact of the pandemic, the study authors noted.
Compared to non-disabled adults, survey respondents with a disability were more likely to be older, less educated, poor, unemployed and less likely to be married. They were also more likely to have public health insurance and have at least one telehealth visit due to the pandemic compared to non-disabled adults.
In the second half of 2020, they were much more likely to report delaying care, not getting care for something other than COVID-19 and not getting at-home care due to the pandemic.
More than 61 million Americans live with a disability and experience disparities in health outcomes due to systemic barriers. The pandemic only exacerbated these, the study noted, increasing the risks of severe illness and death from COVID-19 for people with disabilities. Adults with intellectual or developmental disabilities and mental health conditions have been especially vulnerable.
“People with disabilities have been overlooked and have been often an afterthought in pandemic response and mitigation efforts in the U.S.,” the study authors wrote. Efforts to address inequities will require getting at the root cause of them: social determinants of health.
A comprehensive surveillance system is critical to documenting the impact of crises like the pandemic on people with disabilities, the study said, and for developing policy responses that could address the unique needs of each disability group. Additionally, what could help drive interventions for equitable care is designating people with disabilities as a special medically underserved population and modifying electronic health records to incorporate standardized disability data.
To protect confidentiality, researchers did not include state-specific characteristics, per the study. Thus, future research could account for things like state policies on masking and state spending on long-term services to find out whether they enable continuous access to medical care during a pandemic.