Description
Intellectual disability is a lifelong disability with multiple aetiologies. It is defined as an arrest of intellectual development with no specific personality or behavioural characteristics. One to three percent of the population are estimated to have an intellectual disability. Extrapolating from these figures between three and eight million people in the European Union may have intellectual disability.
Comparisons between the health status of people with intellectual disability when compared with the general population indicate that disparities exist. Evidence based research suggests that those with intellectual disability not only experience poorer health than the general population but that they experience greater barriers in accessing health care.
POMONA (2002-2004) aimed to identify a set of health indicators specific to people with intellectual disability resident in the European Union. The monitoring of these indicators on a longitudinal basis will provide a benchmark of health of people with intellectual disability over time thereby highlighting any reduction in the disparity of health status and access to health systems experienced by those with intellectual disability.
Using a previously defined set of health indictors for the general population as a working framework, (the European Community Health Indicators: ECHI), POMONA project partners engaged in a consultation process in each participating Member State. People with intellectual disability, family & carers, advocates, health professionals, service providers, researchers, and policy makers all contributed to the identification of a draft set of eighteen health indicators for people with intellectual disability. An extensive review of evidence-based research was undertaken to validate this selection and potential operational and measurement definitions of these indicators were presented.
POMONA II, (2005-2008), now aims to finalise the operationalisation of the indicator set and pilot the collection of data on people with intellectual disability in thirteen Member States.
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