Health equity allows people to reach their full health potential and access and receive care that is fair and suitable to them and their needs regardless of where they live, what they have, or who they are. To achieve health equity, equity in healthcare focuses on the role of the health system to provide timely and appropriate care. When viewed in the context of a National Autism Strategy, this extends to ensuring access to the resources that each Autistic person requires to meet their health needs, such as an autism diagnosis, services, and supports. Based on the equity panel discussion held at the Canadian Autism Leadership Summit 2020, this article reflects on the current disparities and barriers to achieving health equity in a National Autism Strategy, and outlines ways to address them. Disparities to equitable care within the autism community extend from the level of support needs of an individual to how those intersect with several key determinants of health including: geography, culture, gender, and socioeconomic status. Notably, barriers arise due to a “lack of” theme, including lack of awareness, knowledge, access, and voice. Four reoccurring ideas were identified for how to address inequities in health care for Autistic people. First, allocate resources for regional or in-community endeavours; second, improve Autistic representation and connection; third, establish a community of allies to advocate and collaborate; and fourth, establish leadership within the community and government to make disability a priority for Canada. To achieve equity in health care in a National Autism Strategy, we need to look at the intersectionality of autism with the key determinants of health. Moreover, to effectively engage with the government, health professionals, and the public, the autism community should strive to find a unified and diverse voice. And finally, conversation must turn to action.
Over the past year a pandemic has swept across the world and, unsurprisingly, revealed gross inequalities across all aspects of life. We saw this in the constant pandemic media coverage that overlooked the experiences of the disability community and, more specifically, the autism community, at least at first. Furthermore, let us not forget in the early days of the pandemic that in countries such as Italy, people without disabilities were prioritized for life-saving machines (Andrews et al., 2020; Lund & Ayers, 2020), contributing to a culture of fear for the one in five Canadians with a disability (Morris et al., 2018) about what would happen to them here. As COVID-19 reached Canadian shores we saw this pattern of inequity quickly replicated within our society. For instance, Canadians with developmental disabilities, such as autism, living in residential settings did not receive the same level of support as those living in different kinds of residences such as retirement residences (Abel & Lai, 2020). Likewise, the initial claims that only people with ‘preexisting conditions’ were at risk implied that those at risk were somehow less valuable to society. Nothing has highlighted the very real problem and extent of ableism within Canadian society as a whole more than these injustices arising from the COVID-19 pandemic, and this is what planted the seed for the Canadian Journal of Autism Equity (CJAE).
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