Race/ethnicity and the use of preventive health care among adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities

Background: Past research has been dedicated to documenting disparities in use of preventive health care faced by racial and ethnic minorities. In addition, studies have looked at the disparities in use of preventive health care experienced by individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (ID/DD). There is little known research that examines disparities in preventive health care use by individuals with ID/DD who identify as African American or Hispanic.

Objectives: This study aimed to determine whether National Core Indicators data demonstrate racial and/or ethnic disparities in the use of preventive health care. Further, this study examined whether those racial and/or ethnic disparities in the use of preventive health care persisted when the analysis controlled for other demographic factors.

Methods: Data were derived from the 2011 to 2012 administration of the Adult Consumer Survey of the National Core Indicators Project. The association of race/ethnicity and preventive health care was assessed using binary logistic regression models.

Results: There seem to be differences in receipt of preventive care by race/ethnicity. However, most of these differences were not significant after other person-level factors were accounted for.

Conclusions: Race/ethnicity may be less of a factor in accessing preventive care among adults with ID/DD receiving services than among the general population.