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"This manual provides specific tips and recommendations on how to include people with disabilities in community-based disaster risk management (CBDRM) work; these tips are applicable to other socially marginalized groups such as illiterate people or ethnic minorities"

In Disability Studies the evolution of conceptual models is often portrayed as linear, with a nineteenth-century charity model shifting to the medical model that dominated disability discourse in the twentieth century. This is then assumed to be largely unchallenged until the 1970s, when an emergent Disability Rights Movement re-framed issues into the social model, from which evolved a rights-based model. This paper documents two early efforts to address disability issues submitted to the League of Nations: the Crippled Child’s Bill of Rights in 1931 and a ‘Memorial’ requesting the establishment of an International Bureau of Information on Crippled Children in 1929. Neither submission achieved its stated goals, yet both reflect early attempts to place disability within wider social contexts.
Disability & Society, Volume 29, Issue 4, 2014, pp. 503-515

WHO factsheet on spinal cord Injury (SCI) presents key facts related to spinal cord injury (SCI).  It includes the following details: background information; prevalence; demographic trends; mortality; the health, economic and social consequences of SCI; prevention; improving care and overcoming barriers; and WHO response

Fact sheet N°384

This special edition journal explores the links between peace studies and disability studies. This issue presents four articles that thematised peace and disabled people in different ways. One article looks explicitly at the nexus of the academic fields of disability studies and ability studies, while three articles look at different groups of disabled people without using the frame of disability studies

Peace Studies Journal, Vol 6, Issue 4

This report presents a review of the evidence base of public health interventions in humanitarian crises by assessing the quantity and quality of intervention studies, rather than measuring the actual effectiveness of the intervention itself.  It notes an increase in quality and volume of evidence on health interventions in humanitarian crises and recognises that evidence remains too limited, particularly for gender-based violence (GBV) and water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH). This report identifies a number of common needs across all areas, namely more evidence for the effectiveness of systems and delivery, better developed research methods, and more evidence on dispersed, urban and rural populations, on ensuring continuity of care and measuring and addressing health care needs in middle-income settings (particularly NCDs)

Note: Use links on the left hand side of the webpage to access either the full report, the executive summary, or the individual chapters arranged by health topic

Purpose: The Rapid Assessment of Disability (RAD) questionnaire was developed to provide governments and development agencies with an appropriate instrument to determine the prevalence of people with disability within theirtarget populations, and to design and evaluate the effectiveness of disability inclusive activities in addressing their priorities and needs.

Method: The RAD questionnaire was developed using two conceptual frameworks: the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), and the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF). Existing instruments were reviewed to inform the structure and content of the RAD questionnaire. The RAD questionnaire that was developed for field testing in Bangladesh comprised both a household questionnaire and a questionnaire for individuals within each household, with 5 sections: 1) Demographic information, 2) Assessment of functioning, 3) Awareness of rights of people with disability, 4) Well-being and quality of life, 5) Participation in the community. Prior to field-testing the RAD questionnaire in Bangladesh, a qualitative study was conducted to ensure the relevance of the questionnaire in the context of a developing country. In-depth interviews with 9 people with disability and a focus group of 8 parents of children with disability were conducted in Dhaka, Bangladesh. 

Results:Qualitative findings highlighted factors relevant to the lives of people with disability in Bangladesh, including discrepancies between the awareness and attainment of rights for people with disability, the wellbeing of people withdisability and their families, as well as numerous barriers to full participation in their community. While the findings confirmed that the design and content of the questionnaire reflected all these aspects, some changes were made to the items in the questionnaire to ensure that it reflected the views of people with disability from the context of a developing country.

Conclusion and Implications: This qualitative study was an important step in the development of the RAD questionnaire as it helped to achieve its aim - namely, to establish the prevalence of disability and to assist in the design and evaluation of disability inclusive interventions in the setting of a developing country.

The Gaibandha Food Security Program is one of the first programs that mainstreams disability on a large scale, and the Food Security Project in Gaibandha was implemented in order to improve the food security situation of 40.000 women headed households. In April 2013 an internal evaluation took place on the disability mainstreaming process within the FSUP Gaibandha project. This report reflects related lessons learned about disability mainstreaming