One year ago, the National Institutes of Health designated people with disabilities as a population with health disparities.

To learn more about these disparities, and further prove their prevalence, Scott Landes, associate professor of sociology at Syracuse University, took it upon himself to conduct a study about the mortality rates of people with disabilities.

He found that people with cognitive, mobility, vision, hearing and self-care impairments are twice as likely to die than people without disabilities. He said that finding was not surprising, but the fact it was consistent across the board was.

“It doesn’t matter your age or your gender or your race, or your level of education, or your income or your health status,” said Landes. “If you’re disabled, you’re about two times more likely to die than a non-disabled person.”

With the information, he hopes to see more research and funding put toward ending these disparities from transportation to quality health care access.

“So if we know that over a quarter of the American population has this increased mortality risk, in my mind, we should be doing everything we can in order to mitigate it," said Landes.

He said he is continuing his research to identify the pathways that allow these disparities to persist.