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This situational analysis (SITAN) addresses the question: “what is the current situation for persons with disabilities in Nigeria?”. It has been prepared for the Disability Inclusive Development programme (which works on access to education, jobs, healthcare, and reduced stigma and discrimination for persons with disabilities in Bangladesh, Jordan, Kenya, Nepal, Nigeria, and Tanzania), to better understand the current context, including COVID-19, and available evidence in Nigeria. It will be helpful for anyone interested in disability inclusion in Nigeria, especially in relation to stigma, employment, education, health, and humanitarian issues.

It is of extreme importance from a protection, human-rights and public health perspectives, that people affected by humanitarian crises are included in all COVID-19 outbreak readiness and response strategies, plan and operations. There is a strong public health rationale to extend all measures to everyone, regardless of status and ensuring inclusiveness. This Interim Guidance addresses specific needs and considerations required in humanitarian situations, including camps and camp-like settings and the surrounding host communities, in scaling-up readiness and response operations for the COVID-19 outbreak through effective multi-sectoral partnership

The COVID pandemic continues to escalate across the world, this document has been prepared to;

• Provide some top-line advocacy messages that can be used for advocacy and communications,
• Give a few questions example that you can ask yourself/or other stakeholders to check how people with disabilities are being included,
• Provide key resources for further reading. We recognise the importance of safe, evidence-based messages, and stand by the advice of the World Health Organisation on health-related issues, of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee on international coordination, and of the International Disability Alliance on inclusion of people with disabilities in the COVID-19 response. 

Prepared by Save the Children's Disability Inclusion Working Group, this brief shares 10 things you should know about COVID-19 and persons with disabilities

Aim: To conduct a detailed investigation into changes in activity limitations and participation restrictions over 10 years in people with mild, moderate and severe multiple sclerosis.

Methods: This study was a 10-year longitudinal study of 264 people with multiple sclerosis living in Stockholm County, Sweden. Ten-year changes in personal and instrumental activities in daily living were assessed using the Katz Activities in Daily Living Index Extended and participation in social/lifestyle activities using the Frenchay Activities Index.

Results: While people with moderate multiple sclerosis, compared to baseline, demonstrated significantly higher proportions of dependency in most activities of personal and instrumental activities in daily living at the 10-year follow-up, the mild group primarily increased their dependency in instrumental activities and the severe group in personal activities. Significantly higher proportions of the moderate group showed restricted participation in domestic and outdoor activities whereas the mild group only showed restrictions in a few domains of participation. A majority of people with severe multiple sclerosis showed restricted participation in all social/lifestyle activities at baseline and the 10-year follow-up.

Conclusions: Prominent long-term increases in activity limitations and participation restrictions occurred across the spectrum of disease severity but was most pronounced in those more moderately affected.

Purpose: Healthcare, one of mankind’s basic needs, is generally accessible to persons without disability, but people with disabilities are marginalized and stigmatized in developing countries and as such are unable to utilise the health services they require.  The health-related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) talk about good health and well-being, and about reducing inequality in societies. In South Africa and Ghana, constitutional provisions and policies have been made for inclusion and for reducing inequality among persons with disabilities, but implementation is still in its infancy. The aim of this study is to determine the level of utilisation and satisfaction with health services among persons with disabilities, and to recommend strategies to improve the current situation in the country.

Method: A non-interventional, descriptive cross-sectional study was employed, with a quantitative data collection method. A structured questionnaire comprising of both open- and closed-ended questions was used for the data collection. A total of 363 respondents were involved in the study – 360 were persons with disabilities, and 3 were key informants.

Results: While A total of 66.9% of persons with disabilities reported being warmly received by health professionals, 23.1% reported encountering a cold attitude, and 5.6% reported being scorned at health facilities. Only 20.5% of persons with disabilities reported frequent visits to health facilities, 42.8% did not visit health facilities frequently, and 36.4% rarely visited a health facility. Moreover 76.4% reported that they made hospital visits for all their ailments.

Conclusion: Although health facilities were utilised by few persons with disabilities, the majority of respondents reported that they were well-received there and as such would visit health facilities for all their medical needs.

Implications: Persons with disabilities should be included in all areas of society by spreading awareness about their abilities. Partnerships between persons with disabilities and the government and other non-governmental  organization’s should be established, to mainstream health services to meet their general and specific needs. It is increasingly important that persons with disabilities play an active role in managing their healthcare needs.

Public health research purports to provide the evidence base for policies, programmes and interventions to improve the health of a population. However, there is increasing awareness that the experiences of disabled people have played little part in informing this evidence base. This paper discusses one aspect of a study commissioned by England’s National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) to review the implications for public health of theories and models of disability. This part of the study focused on the development of a tool or decision aid to promote ethical inclusion of disabled people in public health randomised controlled trials (RCTs) and evaluative research. The tool was introduced at four regional ‘deliberating panels’ involving politically and socially active disabled people. In addition, we held a panel with public health professionals. The deliberation panels debated how the focus of public health was narrowing, why disability was excluded and positive and negative issues with using rights to guide research and evaluative practice. Politically active disabled people argued for a social model of human rights to guide any rights based tools or decision aids in public health and disability research.