• 19% of New Hampshire residents are concerned about losing their ability to drive in the next few years.
• 53% of New Hampshire adults would find getting things in the community difficult if they needed to use crutches or a wheelchair for at least 4 weeks.
• No public transportation system exists for more than 80% of New Hampshire's communities.

Data Source: Feb. 2006 Granite State Poll

IOD Research and the New Hampshire Community

The IOD is pleased to offer research assistance to area foundations, service providers, and advocates, helping to guide the evolution of sustainable, community-based services and supports in New Hampshire. The IOD regularly collaborates with several state agencies to bring in federal grant dollars that provide critical resources for Granite State residents. Additionally, the IOD participates in and helps coordinate the NH Research Group, a collection of over 100 researchers and evaluators who meet to share knowledge, skills, and best practices four times a year.

Fifteen percent (approximately 47,000) of New Hampshire's children have some form of special health care need. Of these:

• One in seven have 11 or more days of school absences due to illness
• One in five:
  • Needed but did not get all respite care, genetic counseling and/or mental health services
  • Had problems getting a referral
  • One in four:
    • Have health conditions which consistently and often greatly affect their daily activities
    • Do not have adequate health care coverage
    • Do not have access to family-centered care
    • Have health care needs which caused family members to cut back or stop working

2001 National Survey of Children with Special Health Care Needs - Results for New Hampshire

In NH, 65% of students with disabilities in 2006 were included in the general education setting more than 80% of the time. In this respect, NH ranks ninth in the nation for having the most children with disabilities included a majority of the time in the classroom. Of note, there is limited variation based on the type of disability that a child has. The following list shows the type of disability alongside the percentage of children in that population who were included at least 80% of the time:

• Specific learning (68.7%)
• Speech language (61.6%)
• Mental retardation (48.5%)
• Emotional disturbance (58%)
• Multiple disabilities (45.4%)
• Hearing impaired (65.2%)
• Orthopedic (72.2%)
• Other health impairments (68.7%)
• Visual impairments (66.3%)
• Autism (59.5%)
• Developmental delay (60.2%)

Source: www.IDEAdata.org

Franklin High School, once the school with the largest percentage of students dropping out in NH, has turned itself around thanks to the work of the Achievement in Dropout Prevention and Excellence (APEX) II project. The high school was able to:

• Identify its most at-risk students sooner with data from its school-wide information system
• Reduce its discipline rate by 64% in one year by organizing its discipline system
• Graduate a much higher rate of students by putting into place the RENEW model as well as options for credit recovery

and, ultimately,

• Reduce its dropout rate from 16.8% to under 3% in less than four years.

For more information, click here.

Demand for emergency department and related ambulatory care among persons with mental illness or substance use conditions is rapidly rising in New Hampshire.

Between 1997 and 2006, the rate of ambulatory care admissions increased substantially, particularly among 15-29 and 30-49 year olds. For example, among 15-29 year olds, mental illness hospitalizations increased 55% (from 90 to 140 per 10,000 people). While the rate of increase among patients over age 65 was lower, the prevalence rate should still be a concern as the number of older adults is expected to double by 2020.

To learn more, click here to download the most recent Access NH report on mental illness and substance use hospitalizations in NH.

Despite the fact that respondents of a new community mental health services survey often cited the effectiveness of individual staff and agency supports in providing high quality care, the most frequent recommendation for agency improvement statewide was in the area of staffing. Core areas of concern included the high rate of staff turnover, lack of specialists to deal with unique conditions, the lack of gender or age appropriate staff to work with troubled youth, and/or general staff availability (respondents cited missed appointments by staff, long waiting times for appointments, and other scheduling problems).

– Findings drawn from the IOD’s 2008 Public Mental Health Consumer Survey Project

For more information and to download the full report, click here.

Overwhelmingly, older adults in NH report that they prefer home care, but the current economic situation is making it difficult for them to stay home. Over 350 individuals attended Community Listening Sessions hosted by the Bureau of Elderly and Adult Services during the spring and summer of 2008. Participants recommended that local communities as well as the state should work to increase support for family caregivers, access to a range of person-centered services and supports, and the availability of a high quality direct care workforce. Other issues raised included engaging community partners, transportation, affordable housing, dental care, communication, mental health, and socialization.

For more information, click here.

Approximately 1400 students, grades 2 through 11, take the New Hampshire alternate assessment (NH Alt) each year. In each content area, the number of students participating has remained fairly steady over the last three years.

Based on educator descriptions of students participating in the NH Alt (Sensory Access Form: Student Communication and Learning Profile), more than 60% understand some level of information via visual, auditory and tactile systems; less than 4% cannot understand information via visual, auditory, and tactile systems.

A small but steady increase has been observed in the use of assistive technology for NH Alt students.

For more information, visit the Gaining Access project page and www.ed.state.nh.us.

The coordination of mental and physical health care is sorely lacking in New Hampshire.  Based on recent research completed by an IOD-led collaborative, evidence continues to build around the growing risks to effective care for those living with mental illness. While community mental health centers face potential cuts to services, emergency facilities are seeing increasing hospitalization rates for mental illness and substance use disorders. At the same time, most physical care doctors report a lack of expertise in a range of mental health areas, leaving the health care system woefully unprepared to meet the complex health care needs of those living with mental illness.

– Findings drawn from the IOD’s new research brief: New Hampshire’s Prescription for Mental Health Care

For more information and to download the full report, click here.

According to the most recent data (2008) from the U.S. Census Bureau, there are approximately 1.3 million people in New Hampshire, with about 141,000 reporting a disability. In other words, people with disabilities comprise 10.9 percent of New Hampshire's population.

Nationally, people with disabilities comprise 12.1 percent of the population. Utah has the lowest percentage of people with disabilities (8.9 percent), while West Virginia has the highest percentage of people with disabilities (19 percent).

For more statistics on people with disabilities, visit www.DisabilityCompendium.org. This is a collaborative effort of IOD, Hunter College, New Editions Consulting, and the American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD).

According to data from the U.S. Department of Education, in 2007, the state of New Hampshire served 27,055 children ages six-17 under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) Part B (i.e., special education services), or about 13 percent of the total NH population ages six-17. Nationally, 5,575,244 children ages six-17 were served under the IDEA Part B, or about 11.4 percent. New Jersey had the highest percentage served under IDEA (15.7 percent), while Idaho had the lowest percentage served under IDEA (8.6 percent).

For more statistics on people with disabilities in New Hampshire, visit www.DisabilityCompendium.org, which is a collaborative effort of the IOD, Hunter College, New Editions Consulting, and the American Association of People with Disabilities.

According to the 2008 data from the Rehabilitation Services Administration, New Hampshire is one of just four states whose vocational rehabilitation programs have not operated on order of selection since 2001. Vocational rehabilitation programs provide services to individuals with disabilities to prepare them to obtain and maintain employment. A state’s vocational rehabilitation program operates on order of selection when it does not have enough funding to provide services to all eligible individuals. The program must instead rank individuals by the severity of their disability(ies) and serve the most severely disabled first. From 2001–2008, New Hampshire, Nevada, Alabama, and Mississippi were the only states that did not have a vocational rehabilitation agency operating on order of selection. For more statistics on people with disabilities in New Hampshire, visit www.DisabilityCompendium.org, which is a collaborative effort of the IOD, Hunter College, New Editions Consulting, and the American Association of People with Disabilities.

New Hampshire ranks 19th in the country and 3rd in New England with regard to the employment of working-age people with disabilities (ages 18-64). According to 2009 data from the U.S. Census Bureau, among the 76,000 working-age people with disabilities in New Hampshire, 30,000 (or 39%) are employed, compared to 80% of working-age people without disabilities. Nationally, 35% of working-age people with disabilities are employed, compared to 74% of working-age people without disabilities. In New England, Connecticut has the highest percentage of working-age people with disabilities employed (41%), followed by Vermont (40%), New Hampshire (39%), Maine (37%), Rhode Island (36%), and Massachusetts (35%).

For more statistics on people with disabilities in New Hampshire and other states, visit www.DisabilityCompendium.org, which is a collaborative effort of the IOD, Hunter College, and the American Association of People with Disabilities.

The U.S. Census Bureau uses a set of dollar value thresholds that vary by family size and composition to determine the poverty line. In 2009, of the 76,114 working-age individuals with disabilities in New Hampshire, 15,551 lived below the poverty line—a poverty rate of 20.4%. In contrast, of the 755,151 individuals without disabilities in New Hampshire, 51,671 individuals lived below the poverty line—a poverty rate of only 6.8%.

The resulting gap, known as the poverty gap, is 13.6 percentage points, a 1.0 percentage point decrease from 2008.

For more statistics on people with disabilities in New Hampshire, visit www.DisabilityCompendium.org, which is a collaborative effort of the IOD, Hunter College, and the American Association of People with Disabilities.

Federal expenditures for working-age people with disabilities are shifting away from employment services to income support. In comparing fiscal years 2002 to 2008, an increase of $357.4 billion dollars in expenditures reflected a 56.3% increase over expenditures in the same major categories in 2002. Programs with the highest growth since 2002 were Medicare at 104%, SSDI for workers with disabilities at 71%, and veterans’ compensation, growing 65%. Expenditures represented nearly $19,000 per working-age person with a disability in 2008. In contrast, expenditures on education and employment services remain low and even declined somewhat since 2002.

For more statistics on people with disabilities in New Hampshire, visit www.DisabilityCompendium.org, which is a collaborative effort of the IOD, Hunter College, and the American Association of People with Disabilities.

Participating in school is an important social role, and education opens up opportunities now and in the future. According to estimates from 2009, among the 76,114 New Hampshire working-age individuals with disabilities, 22.8% had a two-year college degree or higher degree. By comparison, of the 774,654 New Hampshire working-age individuals without, 47.7% had a two-year college
degree or higher degree. When compared to the United States as a whole, New Hampshire fairs well—19.0% of working-age individuals with disabilities in the United States had at

least a two-year college degree.

Facts & Figures: The 2011 Annual Report on Disability in New Hampshire and To The Point: An Introduction to Disability in the Granite State are new annual publications of the UNH Institute on Disability focusing on the population with disabilities in New Hampshire. Click here to download copies.

In New Hampshire, the median annual salary/wages of people with disabilities who worked full-time was $21,900 in 2010, compared to $32,800 for their peers without disabilities—a difference of $10,900. This “gap” in annual salary/wages is slightly larger than the national gap of $10,500.

New Hampshire has the smallest salary/wages gap in New England. Vermont’s gap is $11,000; Rhode Island’s, $11,600; Connecticut’s, $11,800; Maine’s, $12,300; and Massachusetts’, $15,400.

For more statistics on people with disabilities in New Hampshire and other states, visit www.DisabilityCompendium.org, a collaborative effort of the Institute on Disability, Hunter College, and the American Association of People with Disabilities.