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This overview gives actions for the disabled persons and their household, for governments, for healthcare workers , for disability service providers and for the community to mitigate the effects of the COVID-19 outbreak.

PTSD in veterans is a serious issue, but many former service members and their loved ones do not know how to identify the condition or seek treatment. Because PTSD affects mental health and can be hidden, it can be difficult for health practitioners and other individuals to gauge its severity. Additionally, PTSD in veterans is often misunderstood by the public to be a condition that only affects combat veterans or those who have encountered violence firsthand. And even those who understand PTSD in veterans and its potential long-lasting harms still may not know all of its wide-ranging symptoms.

Included here are tips, tools and resources that can help friends and families of veterans who may be suffering from PTSD. 

This document provides a rapid review of the evidence on approaches to ensuring people with disabilities are reached through nutrition programming, focusing on children, adolescents, and women of reproductive age in low and middle-income countries (LMICs). The purpose of this review is to support DFID advisers and partners designing and implementing programmes with nutrition components to ensure they are more inclusive of people with disabilities. After outlining the methodology in Section 2, Section 3 includes an overview of available evidence on what works to ensure nutrition programming reaches people with disabilities, as well as an assessment of the strength of the evidence, and highlighting key research gaps. Section 4 provides a summary on factors affecting access for people with disabilities, and Section 5 concludes by drawing a series of considerations for policy and programming to ensure that people with disabilities are not left behind when it comes to government-led and development partner-led programmes to tackle malnutrition. Case studies of approaches are included in annex 1 to give further insights on promising practices and key learnings

This report is the first global report on epilepsy summarising the available evidence on the burden of epilepsy and the public health response required at global, regional and national levels.

This report is a call for sustained and coordinated action to ensure that every person with epilepsy has access to the care and treatment they need, and the opportunity to live free from stigma and discrimination in all parts of the world. It is time to highlight epilepsy as a public health imperative, to strongly encourage investment in reducing its burden, and to advocate for actions to address gaps in epilepsy knowledge, care and research.

During armed conflict, children with disabilities are caught in a vicious cycle of violence, social polarization, deteriorating services and deepening poverty. Global estimates suggest there are between 93 million and 150 million children with disabilities under the age of 15.Given that disability is often not reported due to stigma there is reason to believe actual prevalence could be much higher. Although efforts to ensure the fulfilment of their rights have improved, girls and boys with disabilities continue to remain among the most marginalized and excluded segment of the population. This is amplified during situations of armed conflict. The barriers to full participation they face on a day-to-day basis are intensified and compounded when infrastructure is destroyed, and services and systems are compromised and made inaccessible. This results in the further exclusion and marginalization of children with disabilities, and prevents them from accessing schooling, health and psychosocial support, or a means of escape from conflict.

When systems and services break down, children are also left more susceptible to violence. Injuries sustained by many children during armed conflict may also lead to long-term impairments. There are six grave violations of children’s rights and protection in armed conflict that are on the agenda of the United Nations (UN) Security Council; killing and maiming, recruitment and use of children, rape or other sexual violence, abduction, attacks on schools or hospitals, and denial of humanitarian access. Governments around the world have committed themselves to respect, promote, and fulfil the rights of children with disabilities, including in situations of armed conflict, and progress is being made. Efforts by a broad range of actors to implement the CRPD, CRC and other human rights instruments include the development of standards to address the rights and needs of persons with disabilities in humanitarian crises, and guidance on making humanitarian response, development and peacebuilding more inclusive. Efforts to improve the collection and use of data concerning children and adults with disabilities are also underway. Yet, as this discussion paper makes clear, much more needs to be done. Investments in disability-inclusive humanitarian action and recovery from crises will pay off, contributing towards a dividend of peace built on greater equality, tolerance and justice. 

Representing between 0.2% to 2% of the population, persons with deafblindness are a very diverse yet hidden group and are, overall, more likely to be poor and unemployed, and with lower educational outcomes. Because deafblindness is less well-known and often misunderstood, people struggle to obtain the right support, and are often excluded from both development and disability programmes. This initial global report on the situation of persons with deafblindness seeks to start a dialogue between international disability rights and development stakeholders, and is based on research undertaken by the World Federation of the Deafblind (WFDB) combining the largest population-based analysis of persons with deafblindness conducted to date (disaggregation of 22 population-based surveys from low, middle and high-income countries), an academic literature review, two surveys conducted among members and partners of WFDB and Sense International. Women and men with deafblindness from across the world took part in the Helen Keller World Conference in June 2018, and were consulted to confirm the findings and elaborate on the recommendations for this report.

Data and discussion are presented on people with deafblindess and: inequality; poverty; work; education; health; participation on political and public life; and social life. Datasets are included. 

This is a practical manual about mental health care, aimed at community health workers, primary care nurses, social workers and primary care doctors, particularly in low resource settings. It describes more than 30 clinical problems associated with mental illness, using a problem-solving approach to guide the reader through their assessment and management. It addresses the lack of understanding of mental health among many health workers. Mental health issues as they arise in specific contexts are described - in refugee camps, in school health programmes, as well as in mental health promotion. The final section helps the reader to personalise for a particular location, for example, by entering local information on voluntary agencies, the names and costs of medicines and words in the local language for symptoms.

This product is an update of the first edition 2003. It is also available as Open Access.

The Humanitarian inclusion standards for older people and people with disabilities provide guidance across all areas and at all stages of emergency response to ensure older people and people with disabilities are not left out.

The standards consist of nine key inclusion standards, including identification, safe and equitable access, knowledge and participation, and learning. Alongside these, there are seven sector-specific inclusion standards, which include protection, shelter, health, and water, sanitation and hygiene.

Each standard comes with key actions, guidance, tools and resources, and case studies illustrating how older people and people with disabilities have been included in humanitarian responses.

The sector-specific standards provide guidance in three key areas: data and information management, addressing barriers to inclusion, and participation of older people and people with disabilities.

By implementing the key action points provided, organisations will build up a greater evidence base, deliver more inclusive programmes, and be able to better demonstrate impact on the lives of those most at risk during humanitarian crises.

The standards can be used as guidance during programme development, implementation and monitoring, and as a resource for training and advocacy.

In 2018, CORE Group prioritised a Disability Inclusive Health agenda and established the Disability Inclusive Health Technical Advisory Group (TAG), based on requests from the global practitioner community, to address gaps in disability inclusivity in health programming and advocacy. The Disability Inclusive Health Technical Advisory Group is open to all CORE Group members and associates, as well as non-members.

CORE Group’s Interest Groups are convened based on need. The Interest Groups are: Disability Inclusive Health Technical Advisory Group; Humanitarian-Development Task Force; and Noncommunicable Diseases Interest Group.