A collage of faces of people of different ages, ethnicities and disabilities.

Your Voice Matters

Participate in the 2023 National Survey on Health and Disability (NSHD) based at the University of Kansas.

About the survey

The National Survey on Health and Disability (NSHD) gives voice to the concerns of people with disabilities, and documents their experiences with a variety of issues. Those include access to health care, insurance coverage, housing, transportation, Long Covid, participation in the community, employment and more. Your experiences and opinions matter and are critical to include in this research that aims to inform and call decision-makers to action on issues that you and other people with disabilities care about.

The survey is anonymous and confidential and takes about 20-30 minutes to complete. It can be done online with a smartphone, tablet, computer or over the telephone with a project staff person.

Scroll down to access the survey

The survey is available via text message, email and by phone. Fill out the short form below and we will send the survey to your device:

Gathering data to inform policy

Findings from the NSHD are shared widely and serve to assure that policy makers respect the philosophy of “nothing about us without us” when it comes to making decisions that will affect the lives of people with disabilities. Past surveys have shown that people with a variety of disabilities report being denied care outright by physicians and other medical providers, and that people who acquire disabilities later in life tend to have poorer health and greater health care expenditures than people who become disabled earlier in life. The survey also has identified that people with disabilities who are also LGBTQ+ experience worse health and poorer access to health care than straight, cis-gender people with disabilities.

For questions about accessing the survey, please email us at healthsurvey@ku.edu, or call toll-free: 1-855-556-6328.

Prior surveys have shown:

A Blind Man with dark hair is smiling and looking to the side. The text reads: 35% of Native Americans with disabilities were not receiving health care services
An older woman with short gray hair is looking straight at the camera. The text reads: People who acquire disabilities later in life tend to have poorer health and greater health care expenditures
An older black man seated in a wheelchair looks pensively to the side. The text reads: 35% of respondents said they often feel socially isolated from others.
Two women are embracing and looking at each other; one is seated in a wheelchair. The text reads: People with disabilities who are also LGBTQ+ experience worse health and poorer access to health care

 

 

The National Survey on Health and Disability (NSHD) is administered by the University of Kansas Institute for Health & Disability Policy Studies (KU-IHDPS) and funded by the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR project #90IFRE0050).

 

Image credits: Disabled and Here; Pexels; Adobe; iStock