Moving the Needle Toward Equity: What NIH Is Doing to Promote Diversity, Inclusion, and Accessibility in Research on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities.

The NIH wrote a plain-language report. It lists steps the agency is taking to make IDD research more fair.

The paper covers who gets grant money, who joins studies, and who gets science jobs.

NIH sees old barriers. Rural teams, minority groups, and disabled scientists rarely lead IDD studies.

The agency is now funding translation services, mentor networks, and community grants.

Krahn et al. (2023) asked adults with IDD what they want. They want surveys with pictures, not proxies. Their voices add the “how” to NIH’s “why.”

Kaufman et al. (2010) showed that adults with ID join studies only 42–100% of the time. The 2023 NIH plan keeps the same fix: use plain consent and trusted helpers.

Morris et al. (2021) found that behavior studies rarely report assent from non-verbal participants. NIH’s new rules now push for the exact assent steps Morris proposed.

You can copy NIH moves in your own lab. Offer consent forms at fifth-grade reading level. Budget for language interpreters. Partner with self-advocate groups. These small steps turn NIH policy into real inclusion for your next IDD study.