Fox et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License CC-BY 4.0., which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

We explored health care differences across the lifespan comparing people with developmental disabilities to people without developmental disabilities. Health care disparities are inequities occurring during the provision of and in access to health care that are experienced by socially disadvantaged populations. We discovered significant disparities between persons with and without developmental disabilities in health status, quality, utilization, access, and unmet health care needs. Our results highlight the need to educate health care clinicians on the care of patients with developmental disabilities of all ages.

No abstract

No abstract

This article is one of a series published in the June 2021 issue of PM&R that collectively form a White Paper describing the vital role of Physiatry throughout the healthcare continuum during the COVID crisis. CONTEXTUAL BACKGROUNDTo situate the field of physical medicine & rehabilitation (PM&R) in the current context of the COVID-19 pandemic, we start with a look back at another defining event in the history of physiatry-the polio epidemic of the 1940s and 1950s, as described by a polio survivor:A fear of the unknown. The need to maintain an appropriate distance. An urgent desire to find a cure or vaccine. They're the hallmarks of the coronavirus pandemic, but they also characterized an earlier epidemic: when paralysis-causing polio ravaged the U.S. in the 1940s and '50s. 1 A highly infectious and indiscriminate disease, at its peak in 1952, there were 57,628 reported cases, 3145 deaths, and 21,269 people left with mild to disabling paralysis. 2 " Unlike COVID-19, polio disproportionately affected children. Many children with disabilities secondary to polio grew up to be leaders in the disability rights movement, critiquing the medical model of disability and the harm of attempts to normalize their bodies through years of experimental surgeries and therapy.As a specialty we owe a great debt to these disability activists.