A Day for All
On International Day of Persons with Disabilities (IDPD) 2019, WHO joined partners to celebrate "a day for all". This theme reflects a growing understanding that disability is part of the human condition.
WHO collaborated with Gallup to integrate the Brief Model Disability Survey into the Gallup World Poll in India, Tajikistan and Laos. This collaboration generates data that allows us to go beyond simple disaggregation by disability; we can examine specific actions policymakers can take to improve the lives of people with disability in their country. WHO is hoping to expand this project into more countries in the future.
Key messages
- The level of disability in countries can be impacted by physical, human-built, attitudinal & sociopolitical barriers, such as negative attitudes of others, inaccessible transportation & public buildings, poor social support, and limited access to health services.
- People with disability encounter a range of barriers when they attempt to access health care including prohibitive costs, limited availability of services, physical barriers and inadequate skills and knowledge of health workers.
- The Model Disability Survey - developed by WHO and the World Bank - is a general population survey which assesses the needs, barriers & inequalities faced by people with disability across the whole population.
- It is not enough to simply know that people with disability are worse off than people without disability—we must find out why. Good quality, broad disability data are essential. The Model Disability Survey was developed to collect such data.
- This year Costa Rica published results from the Model Disability Survey. Results show 18.2% of the population experiences disability, and this group experiences barriers to participate in their communities.