The following is an excerpt from McKinsey Health Institute’s article, “Special Olympics’ Chief Health Officer on championing inclusive health care,” which includes an interview on Special Olympics’ extensive work to promote health equity for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD).
Since its founding in 1968, Special Olympics has grown into a global program that provides year-round athletic training and competition for millions of children and adults with intellectual disabilities. The program fosters and celebrates its athletes’ abilities and promotes equal access to healthcare for all, according to Dimitri Christakis, MD, a professor of pediatrics and epidemiology at the University of Washington and the chief health officer at Special Olympics International. Christakis leads the organization’s health programs—including prevention, assessment, training, and health system strengthening—to improve the holistic health of more than five million Special Olympics athletes and others with intellectual disabilities.
Sunny Sun, a coleader on disability inclusive health for the McKinsey Health Institute (MHI), caught up with Christakis on the sidelines of the World Health Assembly in Geneva, Switzerland, where the theme was “All for Health, Health for All.” They discussed how Christakis and his team are working to gather disability inclusion data from around the world using the Missing Billion framework. MHI has partnered with the Missing Billion initiative to accelerate the movement on inclusive health and publish novel insights to promote change at scale for 1.3 billion people worldwide living with disabilities.
