Poverty, socio-economic position, social capital and the health of children and adolescents with intellectual disabilities in Britain: a replication.
Poverty and weak social supports cause about one-third of the poor health seen in kids with ID.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Emerson et al. (2007) looked at British kids with intellectual disability. They asked if poverty and low social capital explain why these kids are often sicker.
The team used survey data from parents. They compared health reports for children with and without ID.
What they found
Kids with ID had worse health. About one-third of that gap came from family poverty, not the disability itself.
Low income, poor housing, and weak community ties stacked the odds against these children.
How this fits with other research
The finding echoes Lancioni et al. (2006). That earlier paper showed mothers of kids with ID felt extra stress, again mostly due to poverty, not caregiving load.
Dickson et al. (2005) saw the same pattern for teen behavior. Once they adjusted for deprivation, the higher antisocial scores in youth with ID vanished.
Dhuliawala et al. (2023) updates the link for U.S. families. They found food insecurity, a form of poverty, hurts health in children with IDD today.
Why it matters
When you see a child with ID and frequent illness, ask about money, housing, and food before you blame the diagnosis. Write referrals for benefit checks, food banks, or housing aid right next to your medical plan. Reducing poverty can shave off roughly one-third of the health gap, giving your behavior plans a healthier child to work with.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Background When compared with their nonintellectually disabled peers, people with intellectual disabilities (IDs) have poorer health and are more likely to be exposed to poverty during childhood. Given that exposure to child poverty has been linked to poorer health outcomes, we attempted to estimate the extent to which the health inequalities faced by children and adolescents with IDs may be accounted for by their more disadvantaged socio-economic position. Methods Secondary analysis of data on a nationally representative sample of 12 160 British children aged under 17 years extracted from the Department of Work and Pensions' Families and Children Study. Results After controlling for age and sex, children with IDs were significantly more likely (corrected odds ratio = 2.49) to be reported to have less than good health than their nonintellectually disabled peers. However, 31% of the elevated risk for poorer health was accounted for by between-group differences in socio-economic position and social capital. Conclusions A socially and statistically significant proportion of the increased risk of poorer health among children and adolescents with IDs may be attributed to their increased risk of socio-economic disadvantage.
Journal of intellectual disability research : JIDR, 2007 · doi:10.1111/j.1365-2788.2007.00951.x