Carer reports of health status among adults with intellectual/developmental disabilities in Taiwan living at home and in institutions.

K-Alanay et al. (2007) asked carers to fill out a health checklist for adults with intellectual or developmental disabilities. Half of the adults lived in large Taiwanese institutions; half lived at home with family.

The survey covered every body system: infections, skin, liver, heart, lungs, stomach, bones, teeth, mind. Carers simply ticked boxes for any doctor-given diagnosis.

Institution residents were reported to have more hepatitis, skin infections, other infections, and psychiatric conditions than those living at home. The gap grew with age.

Conditions like epilepsy, Down syndrome, and dementia rose in both groups as people got older, but the institutional group stayed sicker at every age band.

J-Rutherford et al. (2003) had already shown the same Taiwan institutions rack up twice the outpatient visits of the general public, mostly for epilepsy. K-Y et al. now widen the lens and show the full morbidity list is longer, not just seizure care.

Williams et al. (2002) and Petrovic et al. (2016) echo the infection story in the West: adults with ID in facilities carry 80–90 % H. pylori and far more untreated tooth decay. The Taiwan data extend this pattern to hepatitis and skin bugs, suggesting institutions everywhere share common infection risks.

Sandberg et al. (2026) will later use whole-country registry data to confirm most diagnoses rise with ID, but they also find cancer oddly lower—probably from missed screening. Their 2026 numbers therefore update (supersede) the 2007 survey with harder, bigger data, yet both agree: more medical conditions pile up when ID and residence overlap.

If you serve adults with ID in any residential setting, treat institutions as higher-medical-alert zones. Add hepatitis and skin checks to your regular staff training, request dental and infection screens before day-program admission, and teach direct-support staff the early signs of psychiatric flare-ups. Simple infection-control routines—hand washing, wound covering, roommate rotation during outbreaks—can close the gap K-Y et al. revealed.