Disability and development, insufficient progress
In the world, one in every six people has a significant disability, and the numbers are rising. Progress toward inclusion insufficient
By Chiara Giovetti
In 2021, the leading cause of disability in the world was neurological disorders. This was reported last March by the World Health Organization (WHO), reporting the results of a study@ published in The Lancet Neurology, an authoritative British scientific journal, which found that since 1990 the total amount of disability, illness and premature death caused by neurological problems has increased by 18 percent.
The top ten neurological conditions that caused health loss are stroke, neonatal encephalopathy, migraine, dementia, diabetic neuropathy, meningitis, epilepsy, neurological complications due to premature birth, autism spectrum disorders, and tumors of the nervous system. More than eight in 10 of the deaths and loss of health years due to neurological causes occur in low- and middle-income countries where the number of neurology professionals is 70 times lower than in high-income countries.
Overall, considering conditions other than neurological conditions, disability is prevalent in 16 percent of the world’s population. One in every six people, for a total of 1.3 billion.
Evolving concept
Disability, reads the WHO website@, is an aspect of the human condition, an integral part of it. It is also an “evolving concept,” clarifies the 2006 UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and is the result of the interaction between health problems and personal and environmental factors, including negative attitudes, inaccessible transportation and public buildings, and limited social support.
Therefore, health equity for people with disabilities-that is, the right to achieve the best possible health status for them-is a priority for development.
International Day of Persons with Disabilities, which has taken place on December 3 each year since 1981, was established to promote the rights and well-being of this 16 percent of humanity and this year has the theme “Strengthening the Leadership of Persons with Disabilities for an Inclusive and Sustainable Future”@.
There are at least five Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) relevant to disability and they cover education, employment, reducing inequality, human settlements, and strengthening the global partnership to achieve the goals.
However, Ulrika Modéer of the U.N. development agency, Undp, and José Viera, of the International disability alliance, noted in 2023 on the Undp@ blog that progress is weak on half of the goals, while on another 30 percent of the goals there is regression.
For example, reports the 2024 Report on Progress Toward Achieving the SDGs, only half of elementary school and 62 percent of secondary schools have basic infrastructure for students with disabilities; moreover, while data show higher rates of intimate partner violence against women with disabilities, the lack of accurate statistical data prevents defining the true dimensions of the problem@.
Disability and wounds of war
Armed conflicts also play a significant role in generating new disabilities. Just to give a few examples limited to the wars in Ukraine and Gaza: last May, Politico.eu reported@ that, according to the Ukrainian Ministry of Social Policy, after the Russian invasion in February 2022, people with disabilities in the country had increased by 300,000 and more than 20,000 had undergone amputations.
The ministry dealing with veterans also estimated that the number of them and members of their families who might need assistance due to physical or psychological trauma would reach 5 million.
In Gaza, too, the war has caused a great many traumatic injuries: using data collected and shared by emergency physicians from Jan. 10 to May 16, 2024, the WHO estimated@ the number of serious injuries and calculated that about a quarter of the 95,500 wounded treated-or about 22,500 people-are likely to need intensive and continuous rehabilitation.
Limb injuries are the most numerous (15 thousand cases) and there are also estimated to be between 3 thousand and 4 thousand amputations, more than 2 thousand serious head and spinal cord injuries, and as many serious burns.
The armed conflict not only generates new disabilities but also affects those who already have one more severely. A report@ on the situation in Gaza published in September this year by Human rights watch, an international human rights NGO, reports that 98 thousand children in Gaza were already living with a disability before the war began and tells the stories of some of them.
For example, that of Ghazal, a 14-year-old girl with cerebral palsy, who had to flee with her family from northern to southern Gaza without her assistive devices, which were destroyed in an attack that hit her home. By early May, Ghazal was displaced in a tent in Rafah, without adequate access to water, food and sanitation and without the ability to go to school and physical therapy sessions.
(Dec. 1, 2024)
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