Addressing health inequities faced by persons with disabilities to advance universal health coverage
Technical Brief
8 March 2023
| Technical document
Overview
Disability results from the interaction between health conditions, such as dementia, blindness or spinal cord injury, and environmental and personal factors. An estimated 16% of the global population, or 1.3 billion people, have a significant disability. Persons with disabilities face health inequities caused by unfair conditions relating to socioeconomic and political contexts, social determinants of health, risk factors and health system barriers. To effectively advance universal health coverage (UHC), health inequities experienced by persons with disabilities must be addressed. Persons with
disabilities and their representative organizations should be involved in health sector decision making, and UHC monitoring systems should collect and analyse disability-disaggregated data to track coverage and outcomes of interventions.
WHO Team
UHC/Life Course EXDGO (UHA)
Editors
World Health Organization
Number of pages
2