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Age- and Gender-Specific Prevalence of Intellectually Disabled Population in India

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Abstract

Intellectual disability in India is substantially under-reported, especially amongst females. This study quantifies the prevalence and gender bias in household reporting of intellectual disability by estimating the age-and-gender specific prevalence of the intellectually disabled by education, Socio-Demographic Index (SDI) score, place of residence, (rural/urban) and income of household head. We estimated prevalence (per 100,000) at 179 (95% CI: 173 to 185) for males and 120 (95% CI: 115 to 125) for females. Gender differences declined sharply with increased education, was higher for lower ages and low income and varied little by state development. Under-identification and under-reporting due to stigma are two plausible reasons for the gender differences in prevalence that increase with age.

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Data Availability

The data that support the findings of this study are openly available at https://mospi.gov.in/web/mospi/download-tables-data/reports/view/templateTwo/16,205?q=TBDCAT.

Code Availability

Available on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the National Sample Survey Organisation for the available data.

Funding

The authors did not receive support from any organization for the submitted work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Economics and Planning Unit, Indian Statistical Institute, New Delhi 110016, India

    Mudit Kapoor

  2. Laxmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute, Harvard University, 110001, New Delhi, India

    Mayanka Ambade

  3. Observer Research Foundation, Delhi, India

    Shamika Ravi

  4. Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies, 9 Bow Street, 02138, Cambridge, MA, USA

    S. V. Subramanian

  5. Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA

    S. V. Subramanian

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  1. Mudit Kapoor
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  2. Mayanka Ambade
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  3. Shamika Ravi
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  4. S. V. Subramanian
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Contributions

Conceptualization: MK, SVS. Methodology: MK. Formal analysis and investigation: MK, SR. Writing - original draft preparation: MK, MA. Writing - review and editing: SR, MA, SVS. Funding acquisition: None. Supervision: MK, SVS.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Shamika Ravi or S. V. Subramanian.

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The authors have no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose.

Ethics Approval

This is an observational study. The Harvard Longwood Campus Institutional Review Board (IRB) allows researchers to self-determine whether their research needs meet the requirements of IRB oversight using IRB Decision Tool. By IRB standards, our study was exempt from institutional review.

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Kapoor, M., Ambade, M., Ravi, S. et al. Age- and Gender-Specific Prevalence of Intellectually Disabled Population in India. J Autism Dev Disord 54, 1594–1604 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-022-05849-9

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