The self-rated health of British adults with intellectual disability.
British adults with ID call their health poor eight times more often than peers—look past clinic walls to see why.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Dumont et al. (2014) asked British adults with intellectual disability to rate their own health. They compared answers with adults of the same age who had no disability.
The survey covered people aged 16-49. It looked at how money, housing, and education shaped the results.
What they found
Adults with ID were more than eight times as likely to say their health was 'fair' or 'poor.' Even after counting income and job status, the gap stayed large.
The study shows poor health is not just about medical problems. Social barriers play a big part.
How this fits with other research
Rose et al. (2000) found the same group had high obesity and little exercise. Their poor ratings now make sense; the body feels what the scale shows.
Sandberg et al. (2026) used hospital records and saw higher illness in most body systems. Self-ratings and hard diagnoses tell the same story, just in different words.
Perez et al. (2015) tracked adults who need help at meals. They died twice as often from chest infections, not hunger. Eric’s broad health gap hides these sharp risks.
Why it matters
Check money and housing before you blame behavior. A client may eat junk food because the hostel has no cooker, not because he lacks skills. Add social-care questions to your intake form and lobby for better benefits. Health plans that ignore poverty miss the real problem.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
People with intellectual disability have significantly higher age-adjusted rates of mortality and morbidity than their non-disabled peers. While self-rated health status is commonly used as an indicator of the health status of populations of interest, few studies have explored the self-rated health of adults with intellectual disability. We undertook secondary analysis of de-identified cross-sectional data from the first waves of two contemporary UK surveys: the Life Opportunities Survey (n=37,513) and Understanding Society (n=50,976). In the Life Opportunities Survey we identified 316 participants age 16-49 (1.7% of the age-restricted sample) as having intellectual disability. In Understanding Society we identified 415 participants age 16-49 (1.5% of the age-restricted sample) as having intellectual disability. Participants with intellectual disability were significantly more likely to report having fair or worse health than their peers (Life Opportunities Survey OR=8.86 (6.54-12.01), p<0.001; Understanding Society OR=13.14 (10.65-16.21), p<0.001). However the strength of this association was significantly attenuated when risk estimates were adjusted to take account of the increased rates of exposure of participants with intellectual disability to socio-economic disadvantage and (in the Life Opportunities Survey) exposure to discrimination and violence.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2014 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2014.01.005