Long-Term Support and Services: Health & Wellness Promotion for People with Disabilities through Prevention

The Americans with Disabilities Act provides an impetus for states to pursue community integration for all individuals. There is a growing interest in determining whether health promotion and preventive services provide a balance between home and community based services (HCBS) and institutional alternatives for persons with disabilities, as states continue to reform their long-term supports and services (LTSS) systems. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the balance of services provided to the disability community within LTSS systems in ten states through the National Balancing Indicator Project (NBIP). One integral facet of LTSS systems being examined is health promotion and preventive services. The NBIP is assisting the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) in developing measures to examine states' efforts in promoting preventive services in the disability community and examining states' success in serving this population. The project considered two measures of prevention: 1) the existence of state supported health promotion and prevention programs for individuals with disabilities and 2) the number of people who reported receiving such services. Nine of ten States support health promotion and prevention programs for persons with disabilities. The Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance Survey (BRFSS) was used to assess the universal availability and utilization of community, clinical, and preventative services. Respondent reports ranged from 65.4% (Nevada) to 84.5% (Massachusetts) having received preventative services in the previous year. This presentation will include the implications of state efforts to fund preventive services for the disability community.