The Power of Fact

Some think that researchers are people who sit behind computers and dream up studies of little consequence. We have come to be a society that has discarded facts and lionized opinion. But research can do something magical with their statistical wizardry if it asks important questions. Questions that have the potential for real life impact. As such is a recent study done by H-CARDD  (Health Care Access Research and Developmental Disabilities) here in Toronto. Here is an infographic from their latest research:

 

 I just wrote the team there and this is what I said to them. (I hope they don't mind.)

Hi, could you please pass along to the H-CARDD team my thanks and my congratulations.

Congratulations for completing and publishing this report.

My thanks, both as a professional and as a disabled person, for doing radical research that ‘speaks truth to power’ … you are constantly creating facts in an arena where opinions and anecdotes used to reign. Because of your work people in general, but most importantly, people in power can’t ‘not know’ this. It matters. It shows that the lives of people with intellectual disabilities are on the line. It affirms the idea of both ableism and disphobia as a constant theme and a constant threat in the lives of people with disabilities.

I am in awe of your commitment and your courage.

Now the opinions in the letter are mine and the reading of the report is filtered through my understanding of the world. But this is what I took from reading the report.

Research like this gives us ammunition with which to clearly state our case when we want to advocate or inform or make policy. It allows us to confirm what we've seen as a real phenomenon.

I invite you to read the whole report which you can link to from the one I've provided.

Take the time.

Become informed.

It matters.