WHO's latest report tells us that one in six people have a
significant disability and that they experience
health inequity.
Hello and welcome to Science in 5,
I'm Vismita Gupta-Smith.
We are talking to Darryl Barrett today.
Welcome, Darryl.
Darryl, speak to us about these health inequities.
Well, quite simply, persons with disabilities are
dying earlier compared to the rest of the population, up to
20 years earlier.
We also see that persons with disabilities are at double the
risk of developing certain health conditions,
such as stroke, anxiety, diabetes or depression.
And thirdly, we see that persons with disabilities have
more difficulties in day to day functioning.
So an inaccessible health facility could be up to six
times more limiting for persons with disabilities.
Now, it's important that we understand that these health
inequities are not due to the underlying health condition
related to disability, but are actually due to conditions that
are unfair, unjust and avoidable.
Darryl, are people facing these inequities because of their
disabilities?
I should explain that disability is different to
a health condition.
They're not the same.
Disability refers to the interaction between someone's
health condition such as depression or
spinal cord injury.
Certain personal factors like age or gender or
ethnic background. And the environmental factors such as
stigma and discrimination or the built environment.
So let me give you another example.
We consider somebody who is having a spinal cord injury.
We've got two people that have a spinal cord injury and
they're both the same age and the same gender.
But one of those people lives in a modern high income country
with access to education and employment
and accessible transportation.
The second person with the exact same health condition
lives in a rural village in a low income country, has limited
access to education and employment and
no accessible transportation.
Even though their health condition is the same,
their experience of disability is very different.
And this is important because we can sometimes consider
persons with disabilities as one homogenous group.
But in fact, persons with disabilities are a very diverse
group and represented in every country, every culture,
every age group.
Darryl, talk to us about the factors that contribute to
these health inequities and who needs to act to address them.
So there are a range of contributing factors to health
inequities for persons with disabilities.
So we can look at some examples.
Stigma and discrimination is a major barrier for
persons with disabilities.
We know that there are many places around the world where
people with disabilities are still unable to make their own
decisions about their health care choices.
And that has an impact.
Poverty is another driver and contributing factor.
When people experience poverty, they are
locked out of education, employment opportunities
which impact directly on their health.
And we know that people with disabilities disproportionately
experience poverty compared to the rest of the population.
Another set of factors relates to disease
risk factors themselves.
So when we talk about disease risk factors, we're looking at
things such as alcohol consumption or tobacco
consumption or the amount of physical activity
that somebody gets.
Now, persons with disabilities are often left behind or
excluded from health promotion activities,
often because they're not in accessible formats.
So if we're creating a campaign on immunization or on healthy
eating or physical activity, we need to make sure that those
health promotion campaigns are produced in Braille or in
verbal format or in easy read format so that persons with
intellectual disability are able to take control and
understand what they need to do.
And then the last set of contributing factors relates to
the health system itself.
If we look at the attitudes, the negative attitudes of
health care workers, those attitudes can be a direct
barrier to persons with disabilities, getting the
health services that they need and and being healthy.
Now, in terms of who's responsible for taking action,
well, all of us have a role to play, but ultimately it's up
to governments to show leadership.
Governments could show leadership among all health
sector partners by making sure that persons with disabilities
are included in program design and implementation.
And if governments and health sector partners included
the representative organizations of persons with
disabilities in those processes, it would make
a massive step in addressing these health inequities that
we have presented.
Thank you Darryl,
That was Science in 5 today.
Until next time, stay safe,
stay healthy and stick with science.