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services and receive quality medical care just like their normally developing peers. However, this special population experience major health and healthcare service disparities. Health disparities are differences in health outcomes (which could be avoided) within groups in the population reflecting the behavioral, sociocultural, biological, and environmental factors or social inequalities that exist within the population.3 Developmental disabilities particularly autism and its Pediatr Neonatal Nurs Open J. 2022; Number 1| associated co-morbidities influence the health of each individual in unique ways and varied degrees. Literature reveals that adults with disabilities most commonly report fair or poor health conditions compared to their normally developing counterparts (40.3% vs 9.9%). In other words, persons with developmental disabilities experience major health disparities owing to their poor physical and mental health states. Also, in most cases healthcare providers do not carry out a comprehensive physical examination on many children with developmental disabilities.4 This may be due to the non-availability of equipment and materials such as weight/height scales, clerking protocols and examining tables among others, adapted to accommodate their varied disabilities. This could have been because of the lack of awareness, poor policy and/or limited resources especially, in resource limited nations like Cameroon. Disparities in accessing health services, high-quality and safe care for patients with disabilities exist due the lack of adequate systems of care.5 This issue is a major problem particularly for persons transiting from children to adult healthcare service providers as their healthcare and social needs are not being met. These disparities in unmet healthcare needs of persons with disabilities particularly those with DDs is a glaring example of what must be done to enhance accessibility to healthcare. For instance, there are few standardized models prescribing the guidelines for caring for this special group such as the adult disability medical healthcare (ADMH) developed for patients with developmental disabilities. This model advocates for the delivery of a complete, compassionate, coordinated and continuous patient- and family-centered care based on evidence, which is accessible to adults with developmental disabilities.6 Therefore, persons with DDs should be able to access healthcare services that do not only meet their physical health needs but also the psychosocial and mental aspects of their health including health promotion and disease prevention. This paper sought to: 1. To critically examine disparities in health and health services experienced by individuals with developmental disabilities particularly autism. 2. To describe the health conditions frequently associated with autism and their treatment options. 3. To critically examine challenges faced by individuals with disabilities in accessing appropriate medical, dental, and mental health services. DISPARITIES IN HEALTH AND HEALTH SERVICES EXPERIENCED BY CHILDREN WITH AUTISM AND OTHER DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITIES Children with autism experience high rates of morbidity and reduced life expectancy (particularly the disadvantaged) compared to typically developing children.7 A variety of physical and mentalhealth problems are commonly associated with autism such as gastrointestinal problems, epilepsy and anxiety among others. Despite the fact that children with autism are affected by varied co-morbidities the healthcare needs of individuals with autism are given little or no attention.8 This may be due to inflexible healthcare policy and knowledge gap on the part of healthcare providers. Worthy of note is the fact that as this special population increases in proportion and becoming fully incorporated into the society it is vital to comprehend their health status and disparities in health and healthcare services.8 This will assists the formulation of physical and mental health promotion and disease prevention frameworks that would provide the unique needs of this special group of individuals. It is important to note that in this paper autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and autism are used
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