In 2009 the New York State Department of Health Center for Community Health adopted a policy that all public health programs must explicitly include children and adults with disabilities and their families as a target population in health promotion efforts. All programs must discuss the importance of people with disabilities in the project and all applicants for grant funding must describe how they will include people with disabilities in their programs. New York is the first state to take on such a policy of deliberate inclusion and targeting of people with disabilities similar to other minority groups in health promotion and chronic disease management and prevention efforts. We hope that by the end of 2015, six more states will take this step and build a more inclusive public health system.
Six by '15 Campaign 