Disability
As part of our work on equality and diversity, we are focusing on race, sex, sexuality and disability, because these are key areas that have been associated with mental health problems.
Psychiatry as a profession has a responsibility and a role to alleviate the distress and harm from which people living with disabilities might suffer. Some of the research we have based this on highlights that:
- about 40% of adults with a learning disability also have a mental health problem, more than double that of the general population (Mind 2016a; McManus et al. 2009; Jacobi et al. 2004)
- according to leading deaf health charity SignHealth, up to 50% of the deaf community in Britain experience mental health problems, with rates of anxiety, depression, and low self-esteem almost double that of hearing people
- it is now clear that the experience of discrimination and inequality can increase the risk of developing mental illness (Pearce 2019)
- people who are subject to inequality go through life with higher levels of stress and mental distress, which places them at higher risk of attempted suicide and self-harm (Farelly et al. 2015)
- people with learning disabilities have multiple health challenges which are inadequately addressed and have significant premature mortality as a result
- mental illness may result in disability and severe forms of mental illness can lead to a reduction in a person’s life span by as much as 20 years.
Website accessibility
We work to ensure our website adheres to modern accessibility standards and we provide the BrowseAloud tool that enables a variety of functionality for people with vision or language difficulties.
We aim to make the site 'AA compliant' – this is a high standard for web accessibility, set by the Worldwide Web Consortium (W3C).
For a fuller description of the features of our website which make content accessible to the widest range of people, please see our page on web accessibility.
Blog posts relating to disability
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The hidden world of non-visible disabilities
For International Day of Persons with Disabilities 2022, we invited Dr Elohor Ijete, currently completing FY3 year in forensic psychiatry, to write about non-visible disabilities.
Dr Elohor Ijete -
Autism in clinical practice: two great challenges
Our Autism Champion Dr Conor Davidson speaks about the two great challenges facing psychiatrists in the field of adult autism.
Dr Conor Davidson -
Autism Champion Blog 2022
In this special blog post about autism, the College autism champion Dr Conor Davidson reflects on the new research surrounding preferred autism terminology and communication styles
Dr Conor Davidson -
Autism Awareness Week 2022: Neurodiversity and neurodivergence
Our Autism Champion Dr Conor Davidson speaks on Autism Awareness Week.
Dr Conor Davidson -
An Outsider’s Inside story - part 3 of 3
To mark Neurodiversity Celebration Week we are publishing this three-part blog post by Dr Tahleel Javed, a specialty doctor and CEO of Society for Tourette's Autism and Neurodiversity (STAND).
Dr Tahleel Javed -
An Outsider’s Inside story - part 2 of 3
To mark Neurodiversity Celebration Week we are publishing this three-part blog post by Dr Tahleel Javed, a specialty doctor and CEO of Society for Tourette's Autism and Neurodiversity (STAND).
Dr Tahleel Javed -
An Outsider’s Inside story - part 1 of 3
To mark Neurodiversity Celebration Week we are publishing this special three-part blog post by Dr Tahleel Javed, a specialty doctor and CEO of Society for Tourette's Autism and Neurodiversity (STAND)....
Dr Tahleel Javed -
Why autistic people should get the COVID-19 vaccination
The College's Autism Champion, Dr Conor Davidson, shares his thoughts on why autistic people should get the COVID-19 vaccination and points towards some helpful resources.
Dr Conor Davidson