Title: Disability Impacts all of us

• Communities
• Health
• Access

Up to 1 in 4 (27 percent) adults in the United States have some type of disability.

Percentage of adults with functional disability types:

• 12.1 percent of U.S. adults have a mobility disability with serious difficulty walking or climbing stairs.
• 12.8 percent of U.S. adults have a cognition disability with serious difficulty concentrating, remembering, or making decisions.
• 7.2 percent of U.S. adults have an independent living disability with difficulty doing errands alone.
• 6.1 percent of U.S. adults are deaf or have serious difficulty hearing.
• 4.8 percent of U.S. adults have a vision disability with blindness or serious difficulty seeing even when wearing glasses.
• 3.6 percent of U.S. adults have a self-care disability with difficulty dressing or bathing.

Disability and Health

Adults with disabilities are more likely to be obese, smoke, have heart disease, and have diabetes:

• 41.6 percent of adults with a disability are obese while 29.6 percent of adults without a disability are obese.
• 21.9 percent of adults with a disability smoke while 10.9 percent of adults without a disability smoke.
• 9.6 percent of adults with a disability have heart disease while 3.4 percent of adults without a disability have heart disease.
• 15.9 percent of adults with a disability have diabetes while 7.6 percent of adults without a disability have diabetes.

Disability and Health Care Access

Health care access barriers for working-age adults include:

• 1 in 4 adults with disabilities 18 to 44 years do not have a dedicated health care provider.
• 1 in 4 adults with disabilities 18 to 44 years have an unmet health care need because of cost in the past year.
• 1 in 5 adults with disabilities 45 to 64 years did not have a routine check-up in the past year.

Making a difference

Public health is for all of us.

Join CDC and its partners as we work together to improve the health of people with disabilities.

• Building inclusive health program
• Improving access to health care
• Promoting healthy living
• Monitoring public health data
• Researching and reducing health disparities