Improving the health of people with a learning disability
A public health nursing approach
This project focused on summarising the best evidence available on improving the health of people with a learning disability from a public health nursing approach as part of a wider project which aims:
- to develop a high-quality, evidence-based high impact area (HIA) resource underpinned by literature and research
- to engage with the learning disability profession to ensure that the resource can be translated into practice and to ascertain local practice examples using the Public Health England (PHE) agreed approach
- to develop a process of dissemination of the resource
- to produce a comprehensive report that presents an appraisal of the intelligence gathered and makes helpful recommendations for the further working and measuring impact.
About the project
Health concerns about the status of children and adults with learning disabilities form PHE’s priorities. This is because people with learning disabilities are more likely to be exposed to risk factors, to adopt unhealthy behaviours and to suffer associated health problems, and while they comprise only 3% of the population overall, they make up substantially greater proportions of people who are obese, smoke and use alcohol in dangerous ways.
Their likelihood of developing dementia is also higher. PHE is the expert national public health agency that fulfils the Secretary of State for Health’s statutory duty to protect health and address inequalities and executes his power to promote the nation's health and well-being.
This project underpinned the development of the resource which forms part of the Chief Nurse Directorate’s commitment to delivery against key priorities reducing health inequalities and reducing premature mortality in respect of people with a learning disability and linked with the UK Strengthening the Commitment Programme of work.
The literature review project was commissioned in two phases. The overall objective was to summarise evidence on how the role of the learning disability nurse contributes to the role of public health and prevention across the life span of people with learning disabilities. The literature review sought to answer the following questions:
- Is there literature which explored the preventative roles of learning disability nurses?
- Are there any themes emerging from these literatures that illustrate the positive factors affecting the involvement of learning disability nurses in leadership, public health, high impact clinical interventions, and life course?
Impact
The outputs of the project will inform policy that aims to improve local approaches to public health and learning disability in order to support local delivery. Improvement in prevention throughout the life course is vital to reducing health inequalities, increasing choice and improving safety for people with learning disabilities.
The research team
- Professor Kay Mafuba (Principal Investigator)
- Dr Marc Foster (Subject Librarian, College of Nursing, Midwifery and Healthcare)
- Dorothy Kupara (Lecturer, College of Nursing, Midwifery and Healthcare).
Funding
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