1026 - A Mental Health Crisis for Adults with IDDs
Public Health On Call
The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
4.6 • 644 Ratings
🗓️ 23 March 2026
⏱️ 15 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
About this episode:
Adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities experience higher rates of anxiety and depression than those without IDDs. Barriers like cost, a lack of trained providers, and societal biases keep many from accessing the care they need. In this episode: what's fueling this crisis hidden in plain sight and what needs to change in order to fix it.
Guests:
Kayte Barton is a former Special Olympics Minnesota athlete, a founding member of the Athlete Leadership Program, and an Athlete Advisory Board member.
Dr. Dimitri Christakis, MPH, is the Chief Health Director for the Special Olympics and the George Adkins Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Washington.
Host:
Stephanie Desmon, MA, is a former journalist, author, and the director of public relations and communications for the Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs.
Show links and related content:
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Anxiety, Depression, and Care Barriers in Adults With Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities—JAMA Network Open
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Strong Minds (Mental Health)—Special Olympics
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Young adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities who participate in Special Olympics are less likely to be diagnosed with depression—Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology
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The Implicit and Explicit Exclusion of People with Disabilities in Clinical Trials—National Council on Disability
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Public Health On Call, a podcast from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, |
| 0:05.9 | where we bring evidence, experience, and perspective to make sense of today's leading health challenges. |
| 0:16.3 | If you have questions or ideas for us, please send an email to public health question at jh.edu. |
| 0:23.8 | That's public health question at jh.edu for future podcast episodes. |
| 0:31.1 | Hey listeners, it's Lindsay Smith Rogers. |
| 0:33.7 | Today, what happens when the health care system sees a person's intellectual disability but misses their mental health concerns? |
| 0:41.5 | Stephanie Desmond speaks to Dr. Dmitri Christakis, the chief health officer at the Special Olympics, and former Special Olympics athlete Kate Barton, about the struggle to access mental health care for many people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. |
| 0:56.0 | Let's listen. |
| 0:57.1 | Kate Barton and Dmitri Christakis, thanks so much for joining me. |
| 1:00.6 | Thank you for having us. |
| 1:01.5 | So today I wanted to talk about some new research that was conducted by Dmitri. |
| 1:06.7 | Adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities experience a much higher rate of anxiety and |
| 1:12.0 | depression, yet many struggle to access mental health care. I wanted to start with you, Kate. |
| 1:16.7 | People hear mental health and intellectual disability in the same sentence. They may not |
| 1:20.8 | realize how connected those issues are. Can you tell us a little about your experience with mental |
| 1:25.1 | health and getting care? Yeah. In 2009, I experienced some of my own mental health issues and we tried to go get help, but my disability got in the way. So I couldn't get the help, which led to me reaching out to Special Olympics and the creation of strong minds. What kind of intellectual disability do you have? I am autistic. |
| 1:45.7 | I don't know anything about strong minds. Can you tell me a little bit about that? |
| 1:49.9 | Strong minds is a part of our health initiatives that is designed to teach athletes coping skills, |
| 1:56.8 | both for competition and in life. Gizm teaches them how to use stuff like deep breathing, |
| 2:02.3 | positive self-talk and music or other things that help them calm down |
| 2:06.6 | and help them focus on competition. |
| 2:09.5 | Dmitri, tell us about your new study. |
... |
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