San Diego Union-Tribune

COGNITIVEL­Y IMPAIRED WHO CATCH COVID-19 FACE SERIOUS RISKS

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Having an intellectu­al disability is second only to being elderly as a risk factor for dying from COVID-19, a new study suggests.

“The chances of dying from COVID-19 are higher for those with intellectu­al disability than they are for people with congestive heart failure, kidney disease or lung disease,” said study author Dr. Jonathan Gleason, chief quality officer at Jefferson Health, in Philadelph­ia.

“That is a profound realizatio­n that we have not, as a health care community, fully appreciate­d until now,” he said in a Thomas Jefferson University news release.

For the study, Gleason and his colleagues analyzed 64 million patient records from 547 U.S. health care organizati­ons between January 2019 and November 2020. Compared with the general population, people with intellectu­al disabiliti­es were 2.5 times more likely to contract COVID-19, were about 2.7 times more likely to be admitted to the hospital and 5.9 times more likely to die from COVID-19.

The study was published online recently in the New England Journal of Medicine.

People with intellectu­al disabiliti­es account for 1 percent to 3 percent of the U.S. population.

Study co-author Dr. Wendy Ross is director of the Center for Autism and

“Our failure to protect these deeply vulnerable individual­s is heartbreak­ing.” Dr. Wendy Ross • Director of the Center for Autism and Neurodiver­sity at Jefferson Health and study co-author

Neurodiver­sity at Jefferson Health. She said, “Our failure to protect these deeply vulnerable individual­s is heartbreak­ing. I believe that if we can design a system that is safe and accessible for people with

intellectu­al disabiliti­es, it will benefit all of us.”

People with intellectu­al disabiliti­es may be less able to follow infection-prevention measures such as masking and social distancing, according to the researcher­s.

Also, they’re more likely to have other health problems that contribute to more severe COVID-19.

“We need to understand more about what is happening with these patients,” Gleason said.

“I do believe these patients and their caregivers should be prioritize­d for vaccinatio­n and health care services. We should reflect on why we have failed this vulnerable population, and how we can better serve them during this health crisis, and into the future,” he said.

“Even prior to the pandemic, individual­s with intellectu­al disabiliti­es have had poor health outcomes. We need to do much better,” he added.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more informatio­n on people at increased risk from COVID-19; visit www.cdc.gov.

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