You may have heard the good news in August that the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) awarded The Arc a three-year cooperative agreement to raise awareness of and reduce the significant health disparities often experienced by people with intellectual disabilities, including those with autism. We aim to do this through offering free health screening events for people with ID, collecting and evaluating the health screening data, and launching an amazing array of evidenced-based and best practices training for key stakeholders, including people with ID.

The Arc has one million dollars to work with in this first year of the project. And one year to make an incredible impact.

Imagine someone with an intellectual disability going through a health screening to discover that they have an undetected health issue, like high blood pressure, an infected tooth, or an untreated issue on the bottom of their foot. Or maybe it’s a hearing problem or blurry vision that shows up in the screening. Health professional volunteers conducting these screenings will help identify areas of concern, and staff from Chapters of The Arc will be on site to provide information, referrals, and linkages to local doctors. This effort will be among the first to collect HIPAA-compliant health data on this population, data that will help bring more awareness and solutions to health issues that they face.

So what is our plan? Our goal: to move more than 6,000 people with ID of all ages through a basic, free, non-invasive health screening that is conducted by volunteer health professionals such as nurses or medical students. The CDC helped The Arc to shape the plan that focuses on five selected states/regions in which to work on implementing HealthMeet™ initiatives in this first year. Working in a pilot phase with an eye towards replication opportunities, The Arc will be working with The Arc of Massachusetts, The Arc San Francisco, The Arc New Jersey, ACHIEVA in Pittsburgh, PA, and The Arc of North Carolina. Together, we will implement and evaluate five different models and the work has already begun.

We are working with some amazing national partners – the Association of University Centers on Disabilities (AUCD), the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (AAIDD), Autism Speaks, the National Down Syndrome Congress, and the National Association of County and City Health Professionals. Therap LLC is helping us to collect the data using state of the art technology, and the Elizabeth Boggs Center in New Jersey is helping with the data evaluation. We are in discussions with major corporations to see how they can lend a helping hand to this important initiative. The Arc’s own National Self Advocacy Council is involved in getting their growing network of people with intellectual disabilities involved.

We’re going to need your help. As these Chapters of The Arc work within their states to implement HealthMeets™ early in 2013, we want our network and our national partners to activate a HealthMeet™ movement in these states. There’s going to be online training that you can register for, learn from, and pass along to someone else. There might be someone you can help by getting involved yourself as a volunteer.

You’ll be hearing more and more about HealthMeet™ as we advance towards full implementation. We can all take part in activities that lead to being healthy. Join us!

HealthMeet™ is funded by the Centers for Disease Control Grant # 1U59DD000993-01. For more information, please contact The Arc of the United States at 202-534-3700 or info@thearc.org.