Data and Research

International News

UN Flagship Report On Disability And Development 2024 (Jun, UN)

Travel Patterns of Americans with Disabilities “In 2022, 18.6 million Americans age 5 and older (6.1 percent of all persons in that age range) self-reported travel-limiting disabilities.” (Apr, Bureau of Transportation Statistics)

What cut-off(s) to use with the Washington Group short set of questions?

“We recommend a three-way disaggregation comparing persons with (a) no difficulty, (b) some difficulty and (c) a lot of difficulty or unable to do. In cases where sample sizes are small for disaggregated analysis, we recommend comparing persons with no difficulty to persons with any level of difficulty (i.e. persons with any disability).” (2023, Disability and Health Journal)

8 reasons why citizen-generated data is imperative for people with disabilities. (2023, Data Values Digest)

Lack of disability data impedes health care equity. (2023, McKinsey Health Institute and Missing Billion)

How many disabled people are there? Debrief feature exploring why the complexity of disability can't be reduced to one number. (2023, Disability Debrief)

Inclusive data and Sightsavers: an ongoing journey. (2023, Sightsavers)

A learning brief on using the Washington Group questions on disability in development programs. (2023, CBM Global)

Disability Data Report 2023 reviews available disability data internationally and explores indicators for 15 countries. (2023, Disability Data Initiative.)

Who is disabled? On whether the functional definition of disability targets the same individuals as the subjective definition:

“Being categorized as disabled according to one assessment tool does not necessarily mean that an individual will be categorized as disabled when using another assessment tool. Two studies found that there was only about 47% overlap between individuals that score as disabled using a subjective measure and those that are disabled according to the Washington Group question set.” (2023, Frontiers In Sustainability)

The importance of citizen-generated disability data. (2023, CBM Global)

Global prevalence of developmental disabilities in children and adolescents: a systematic umbrella review. (2023, Frontiers in Public Health)

Anxiety and Depression Signs Among Adolescents in 26 Low- and Middle-Income Countries: “Compared to adolescents without functional difficulties, those with difficulties in one or more domains were three times more likely to have signs of depression and anxiety.” (2023, Journal of Adolescent Health)

ESG and Disability Data white paper a call for inclusive reporting and standardized disability inclusion key performance indicators for businesses. (2023, Valuable 500) See also a blog on why it's needed.

Counting children with disabilities starts with changing minds. (2022, UNICEF)

Harmonizing Disability Data to improve disability research and policy. (2022, Health Affairs)

Module on Child Functioning: Guidance note for translation and customization (2022, UNICEF)

Global and regional prevalence of disabilities among children and adolescents: Analysis of findings from global health databases. Comparing data from UNICEF and Global Burden of Disease Study. (2022, Frontiers Public Health)

An analysis of global prevalence of cerebral palsy. “From the limited but increasing data available from regions in low- and middle-income countries, birth prevalence for pre-/perinatal CP was as high as 3.4 per 1000 live births.” (2022, Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology)

Household Survey Data on Disability and Education in countries where the Global Partnership for Education works. “There remain 28 countries (out of 76) for which there appears to be no nationally representative, reliable and comparable survey or census data on disability that could be used for disaggregating education statistics for the period 2010–2020” (2022, GPE)

Why do we need data on women and girls with disabilities? “One way to address this data gap has been the collection and use of qualitative data, including citizen-generated data from organizations of persons with disabilities and NGO allies to complement official statistics to measure gaps and progress. This use of qualitative data is especially important in emergency situations, such as during the COVID-19 pandemic” (2022, CBM Global)

The association between household wealth and the prevalence of child disability. Analysis of surveys in 40 low- and middle-income countries give “robust evidence that in LMICs the prevalence of child disability is disproportionately concentrated in poorer households.” (2022, Disability and Health Journal)

World Bank and Microsoft commit to narrow the data gap. With a “disability data hub” they plan to “expand both access to and the use of demographics and statistics data to ensure representation of disability, particularly in low- and middle-income countries.” (2022, Microsoft)

Should you use the Washington Group questions in your humanitarian programming? A tool to help you decide. (2022, Washington Group on Disability Statistics)

Explainer video on how the Washington Group question approach to measuring disability relate to the Social Model? (2022, Center for Inclusive Policy)

Why is it Important to Identify the Population with Disabilities? an explainer video. (2022, Washington Group on Disability Statistics)

Short video to understand the prevalence of disability (2022, Center for Inclusive Policy)

Short video on Why is it important to identify the population with disabilities? (2022, Center for Inclusive Policy)

Exploring the Use of Washington Group Questions to Identify People with Clinical Impairments Who Need Services including Assistive Products: Results from Five Population-Based Surveys (2022, Environmental Research and Public Health)

A video introducing the Center of Excellence on Data for Children with Disabilities (2022, UNICEF)

How will data help us break the cycle of discrimination and intersectional disadvantages for girls and women with disabilities? (2022, Inclusive Education Initiative)

Report on how organizations within the UN are using Disability Statistics (link to pdf, 2022, UN)

Summary of an article on conducting online interviews with disabled young people during the COVID-19 pandemic. (2022, International Journal of Social Research Methodology)

All children count: Fostering inclusion through data. (2022, Data 4 SDGs)

Why Disability Data Matters Review of Leonard Cheshire’s latest disability data and the Disability Data Portal. "Where disability data does exist, it
can often remain unused. " (link to pdf, 2022, Leonard Cheshire)

Much remains to be done to improve inclusive data collection (2022, Devex)

FIRAH applied disability research General call for projects - 2022 Project leaders can be from any country in the world but if they're not French then it has to be in partnership with a French organization. (2022, FIRAH)

Workshop on Innovative methods for researching disability & COVID19 in the Global South for academics and practitioners, on 3rd March. (Disability Under Siege, 2022)

Addressing the dearth of disability-inclusive data in COVID-19 (2022, Data Values Digest)

The World Bank Open Learning Campus elearning module on Collecting Data on Disability Inclusion. (2022, World Bank)

Data Dashboard on health and disability, “includes data on overall mortality and COVID-19 mortality for people with disabilities, as well as key health indicators” (2022, Missing Billion)

Disability Data Advocacy Toolkit updated version (link to pdf, 2021, CBM Global)

Data-driven advocacy for inclusive employment and social protection The experiences of organizations of persons with disabilities in Bangladesh and Kenya (2021, Leonard Cheshire)

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Asia-Pacific

Are persons with disabilities included in the effort to leave no-one behind? An overview that shows the gaps in countries' ability to monitor the situation of persons with disabilities. See accompanying resource, Where are we?, and lessons learned. (2022, UNFPA)

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Africa

Children with Disabilities in Eastern and Southern Africa: A statistical overview of their well-being (2023, UNICEF)

ILO data highlights need for disability disaggregated labour force surveys and investment in data systems. “Across Africa, 31 countries have at least one year of disability-disaggregated data available on ILOSTAT in the 20-year period from 2002-2022.” (2023, ILO)

Estimating Households’ Expenditures on Disability in Africa: The Uses and Limitations of the Standard of Living Method. “In lower-income countries, people with disabilities are likely to have fewer opportunities to spend on needed items thus resulting in substantial unmet need for disability-related goods and services. Failing to account for these unmet needs can lead to inadequate systems of social protection if they are based solely on SOL estimates.” (2022, IJERPH)

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Gabon

Gabon has nearly 16,00 people living with disability, 27% of whom are children. Results of a census of people living with disability. (In French, Jun, Info 241)

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Kenya

Empowering Inclusive Living for All People: exploring the methodology of the 2023/2024 Kenya Housing Survey. (Jan, Washington Group on Disability Statistics)

Exploring demographic and health survey data (2023, Disability Data Initiative)

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Mali

Exploring demographic and health survey data (2023, Disability Data Initiative)

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Mauritania

Exploring demographic and health survey data (2023, Disability Data Initiative)

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Nigeria

Only 4,500 out of 35.1m PWDs in Nigeria officially registered (2023, News Digest)

Exploring demographic and health survey data (2023, Disability Data Initiative)

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Rwanda

Exploring demographic and health survey data (2023, Disability Data Initiative)

Rwanda to conduct first digital census for people with disability. A pilot digital census, using the Washington Group questions, and a precursor to a Disability Management Information System. (2022, The New Times)

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Senegal

Exploring demographic and health survey data (2023, Disability Data Initiative)

Senegal launches action plan to to collect high-quality inclusive data. (2022, Sightsavers)

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Sierra Leone

Collecting disability data in schools in Sierra Leone (2023, UKFIET)

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South Africa

Exploring demographic and health survey data (2023, Disability Data Initiative)

Accessibility to education for persons with disability ”Shocking statistics reveal how people living with disabilities in South Africa are denied a right to education.” (2023, Soweto Urban)

Monitoring disability inclusion: Setting a baseline for South Africa (2022, African Journal of Disability)

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Tunisia

Quality of life and its predicting factors for Tunisian children with cerebral palsy. (2022, African Journal on Disability)

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Uganda

Exploring demographic and health survey data (2023, Disability Data Initiative)

We are able: interactive radio campaign. Respondents without disabilities more likely to say disabled people experience food insecurity because of low self-esteem and negative attitude than because they face exclusion. (2023, Trac FM)

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Afghanistan

Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey Findings Report 2022 to 2023 survey. Percentage of children age 5-17 years with functional difficulty in at least one domain is 35%. (2023, UNICEF)

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Bangladesh

Preliminary Report on the National Survey on Persons with Disabilities 2021. A cross-sectional survey of 36,000 households finds that in government definitions of disability 2.8% are disabled and in terms of functional difficulty (a preferred measure), 7.1% have a functional difficulty. (link to pdf, 2022, BBS)

Improving disability data in Bangladesh Access Bangladesh Foundation’s leading advocacy. (2022, DRF)

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Cambodia

Exploring demographic and health survey data (2023, Disability Data Initiative)

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Cameroon

Localizing inclusive data: Lessons from Sightsavers' work in Cameroon (Apr, Data 4 SDGS)

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China

Atlas of Classified Disability: Spatial Statistics and Pattern (2023, CCDC Weekly)

Report on disability data with a focus on employment. (In Chinese, 2023, JSTV)

Correlation between functional disability and quality of life among rural elderly in Anhui province,: a cross-sectional study. (2022, BMC Public Health)

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India

Prevalence of functional difficulty among school-aged children and effect on school enrolment in rural southern India: A cross-sectional analysis:

“This study shows that at least one in a hundred children in this region have severe functional difficulties and nearly half of these children are not enrolled in school, highlighting the need for further efforts and evidence-based interventions to increase school enrolment among these groups.” (Apr, Journal of Epidemiology and Global Health)

Exclusion of questions on disability data from the upcoming National Family Health Survey. “In a plea challenging the exclusion of disability-related questions from the sixth instalment of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS), the Calcutta High Court has issued notice to the respondents to file an affidavit to satisfy the prayers raised by the petitioners against the exclusion.” (2023, The Leaflet)

Lack of data is denial of rights for persons with disabilities. Disability questions dropped from upcoming National Family Health Survey (NFHS-6). (2023, H-Leads)

Data Gaps: Undercounting Disability In India Explores issues with surveys, disability certification and the unique disability id scheme. (2022, IndiaSpend)

Factsheet: Disability In Jharkhand results from the National Family Health Survey showing less than 1% of the population having a disability. (2022, The Sangyan)

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Indonesia

How do Positive Deviants Overcome Health-Related Stigma? An Exploration of Development of Positive Deviance Among People With Stigmatized Health Conditions in Indonesia (2021, Qualitative Health Research)

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Jordan

Government update on use of the Washington Group questions in the census and other surveys. (link to pdf, 2022, United Nations Statistical Commission)

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Lebanon

Disability Inclusion Survey Results (2023, Relief Web)

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Maldives

Exploring demographic and health survey data (2023, Disability Data Initiative)

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Myanmar

The 2019 Inter-Censal Survey finds a disability prevalence rate of 12.8%, namely close to six million of forty six million aged five and up. Higher among females (13.9%) than males (11.6%) and slightly higher in rural areas (13.1%) than urban (12.3%). (Link to pdf, 2020, Myanmar Government and UNFPA)

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Pakistan

Exploring demographic and health survey data (2023, Disability Data Initiative)

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Palestine

The number of persons with disabilities has doubled in Gaza Strip between 2007 and 2017. (2023, Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics)

Disability in the Occupied Palestinian Territories Analysis of Census Results 2017 using the Washington Group (WG) questions:

“Overall, 2.2% (or almost 18,000 persons) of those included in the census above 4 years of age (as defined by the WG) are people with one or more disability using the narrow definition of the WG” (Link to pdf, 2021, Disability Under Siege)

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Philippines

Functional Difficulty in the Philippines: results from the 2020 census of population and housing. “Nearly nine in every 100 persons (8.7%) had at least one domain of functional difficulty. Females accounted for 55.6 percent.” (2022, PSA)

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South Korea

Around 50% of people with disabilities aged 65 or above “According to the Health Ministry’s report [...] up to 2.65 million of the total population were registered as having some sort of disability.” (May, The Korea Herald)

Life expectancy and healthy life expectancy of Korean registered disabled 2014–2018, Korea National Rehabilitation Center database. Study confirms disabled people have a shorter life expectancy than those without. (2023, BMC Public Health)

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Timor Leste

Exploring demographic and health survey data (2023, Disability Data Initiative)

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Yemen

Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey Findings 2022-2023 across 20,000 households. Percentage of children age 5-17 years with functional difficulty in at least one domain is 21%. (2023, UNICEF)

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Europe

Disability statistics - poverty and income inequalities “In 2023 in the EU, 28.8% of people with a disability were at risk of poverty or social exclusion, compared with 18.0% among people with no limitations.” (Jul, Eurostat)

It just became easier to find EU-level data on persons with disabilities (Jan, EDF) See the new eurostat thematic section on disability.

Children with Disabilities in Europe and Central Asia: A statistical overview of their well-being (2023, UNICEF)

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Germany

Young people with disabilities are less satisfied than others. Among youth surveyed, aged between 14 to 27, 53 percent of young people with disabilities are satisfied with their lives, compared to 78 percent of young people without disabilities. (In German, I used google translate, Sep, Zeit Online)

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Luxembourg

Results of disability in nationwide census. Disability was included for the first time in 2021. “People with disabilities have a lower level of education than other people,” Statec said in a statement on Friday. “Their integration into the labour market is also more complicated.” (Mar, LuxTimes)

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United Kingdom

Fall in disabled older people in census data ‘could be due to pandemic’, or the change in wording of the census question. (2023, The Independent) More young people declared disability in the census after inclusion of mental health in the question about disability.

Work to be done on census figures for BSL: discusses methodology and estimates 150,000 BSL signers in the country. (2022, BDA)

Childhood disability, social class and social mobility: A neglected relationship. “We specifically focus on the importance of social class for disabled young people's outcomes, emphasizing the need for intersectional analyses of disability inequalities.” (2022, The British Journal of Sociology)

Outcomes for disabled people in the UK: 2021 detailed statistics from a range of datasets. (2022, ONS)

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Canada

Household food insecurity among persons with disabilities in Canada: Findings from the 2021 Canadian Income Survey:

“HFI prevalence among CIS participants with disabilities was higher than for persons without disabilities, even after adjustment for well-documented sociodemographic risk factors.” (Aug, Statistics Canada)

Vacations for persons with disabilities could still include everyday barriers to accessibility. (Aug, Statistics Canada)

Changes in workplace accommodations among employed Canadians with disabilities, 2017 to 2022:

“In conclusion, the increase in working from home appears to have benefited PWDs through a decrease in their unmet needs for [workplace accommodations]; however, this decrease varied across groups.” (Aug, Statistics Canada)

A profile of 2SLGBTQ+ persons with disabilities, 2022 “Among [Canadians with disabilities], approximately 8.7%, or 694,090 individuals reported being a 2SLGBTQ+ person, representing 2.3% of the Canadian population aged 15 years and over.” (Jul, Statistics Canada)

Canada Is Still Failing People With Disabilities analysis of recent statistics: “Disabled people continue to experience worse employment outcomes and higher rates of poverty than those without disabilities.” (Jun, The Maple)

Labour market characteristics of persons with and without disabilities, 2023: “the employment rate held steady among persons with a disability (47.1%)”. (Jun, Statistics Canada)

A demographic, employment and income profile of persons with disabilities aged 15 years and over in Canada, 2022. Canadian Disability Survey finds that the disability rate for persons aged 15 years and over in Canada was 27%, 30% of women, 24% of men. (May, Statistics Canada)

Canadian Survey on Disability, 2017 to 2022:

“New findings from the 2022 Canadian Survey on Disability (CSD) showed that 27% of Canadians aged 15 years and older, or 8.0 million people, had one or more disabilities that limited them in their daily activities. The rate of disability in Canada has increased by 5 percentage points since 2017, when 22% of Canadians, or 6.2 million people, had one or more disabilities. This increase can be partially attributed to both the aging population and the large increase in mental health-related disabilities among youth and working-age adults. In 2022, the rate of disability was higher among women (30%) than men (24%), following the same pattern from 2017.” (2023, Statistics Canada)

COVID: 1 in 9 Canadian adults have had long-term symptoms. “Almost 80 per cent of those people with long-term symptoms have them for six months or more, the report said, including 42 per cent who had them for a year or more.” (2023, CTV News)

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Costa Rica

17.2% of the Costa Rican population has a disability according to the results of the second national survey on disability. “Employment for the disabled population was estimated at 40.7% versus 66% of people without disabilities who have jobs.” (In Spanish, Jun, El Observador)

Results of the 2023 National Disability Survey

“It is estimated that 17.2% of people aged 18 and over in Costa Rica have a disability. Of the total number of people with disabilities, approximately 58% are women. 40.7% of people with disabilities have jobs.” (In Spanish, Jun, INEC)

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Dominican Republic

Low labour inclusion: Only 15.8% of private companies hire people with disabilities, according to a report from the national statistics office. (In Spanish, Aug, Políticos en la red)

Proposal approved for a national census to identify all people with disabilities resident in the country. (In Spanish, Apr, Diario Libre)

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El Salvador

Half of Salvadorean households have a person with disability findings from a UNFPA situation analysis of persons with disabilities. (In Spanish, Jun, El Salvador)

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Guatemala

Exploring census data. (2023, Disability Data Initiative)

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Haiti

Exploring demographic and health survey data (2023, Disability Data Initiative)

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United States

When Designing Disability Survey Questions, Align Measurement To Purpose A Response To Landes et al:

“Focusing on functional difficulties in core domains makes it possible to produce an overall indicator but also provides information that is specific enough to be directly useful in removing key barriers that contribute to domain-specific difficulties. For example, people who cannot see face very different barriers than people who cannot hear; they require different accommodations or design elements.” (Oct, HealthAffairs)

Millions of people are missing from U.S. disability data:

“The first step in moving disability measurement forward is recognizing that defining disability solely by someone’s functioning is inadequate. While measures of functioning are important to understand the limitations certain disabled people experience and could identify disabled people who may benefit from specific programs or benefits, these surveys still fail to capture many disabled people. Using this data to determine national estimates of disability is akin to using data on languages used in the home to determine the national race and ethnicity estimates.” (Sep, Stat)

Disabled People Are Five Times More Likely to Experience Domestic Violence. Based on data from the Justice Department:

“People with cognitive disabilities, such as those who are autistic, are even more likely to be abused. Disabled women are also more likely to be the target of such violence than disabled men.” (Sep, Mother Jones)

Disability Mortality Disparity: Risk Of Mortality For Disabled Adults Nearly Twice That For Nondisabled Adults, 2008–19 (Aug, HealthAffairs)

To Reduce Disability Bias in Technology, Start With Disability Data. “This paper identifies the various ways in which data sets may exclude, inaccurately count, or be non-representative of disabled people.” (Jul, Center for Democracy & Technology)

Over 70 Million U.S. Adults Reported Having a Disability:

“The latest data, from the 2022 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), reveal that more than 1 in 4—over 70 million—adults in the United States reported having a disability in 2022.” (Jul, CDC Newsroom)

Current Approaches to Measuring Disability Status in Federal Surveys May Limit Understanding of Economic and Health Disparities (Jun, Urban Institute)

Next Steps on the American Community Survey Disability Questions in response to push-back on proposed adoption of the internationally-standard Washington-Group questions. (Feb, Census Bureau)

Working-Age Adults with Disabilities Living in the Community. Analysis of the American Community Survey. (Jan, KFF)

Charting Equality: Why Demographic Disability Data is Good for Everyone. A detailed exploration. (Jan, DREDF)

Annual Disability Statistics Collection gathering disability statistics from many federal agencies. (Center for Research On Disability)

The United States Census Bureau’s Decision to Switch to the Washington Group Questions a justification of reasons for the change. (2023, Center for Inclusive Policy)

How many in the U.S. are disabled? Heated discussions of proposed change to use of Washington Group Questions. (2023, Science)

Most Disability Professionals are Ableist. “I found the majority of disability professionals (77.2%) explicitly preferred nondisabled people, with 54.2% of disability professionals moderately or strongly preferring nondisabled people.” (2023, The Council on Quality and Leadership)

Four in Ten Adults with Disabilities Experienced Unfair Treatment in Health Care Settings, at Work, or When Applying for Public Benefits in 2022. (2023)

8 facts about Americans with disabilities based on government data and recent surveys. (2023, Pew Research Center)

Prevalence of disabilities among older Americans is much lower than a decade earlier (2023, News Medical Life Sciences)

Comparing Measures Of Functional Difficulty With Self-Identified Disability: Implications For Health Policy. Shows how six-question sets “performed especially poorly in capturing respondents with psychiatric disabilities or chronic health conditions.” (2022, Health Affairs)

A Need For Disability Data Justice “Public health data systems and infrastructure must be built to collect disability data and use this information to combat ableism and support equity and social justice.” (2022, HealthAffairs)

Disability Data Snapshot: Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. (2022, U.S. Department of Labor Blog)

An Online Resource For Understanding Disability ‘By The Numbers’ (2022, Forbes)

More inclusive research practices needed to expand data on people with disabilities (2022, Healio)

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Australia

The percentage of Australians with disability has surged in a few years

“According to the Survey of Disability, Ageing and Carers, gathered in 2022, the number of Australians living with a disability increased to 5.5 million or 21.4% of the population. This is a striking increase from 17.7% in 2018, a figure that had remained relatively consistent for two decades (15% in 1998)” (Aug, Phys)

Reasons why the percentage of Australians with disability has surged (Aug, The Conversation)

Australian Bureau of Statistics releases new disability statistics

“As of 2022, there are now 5.5 million Australians with disability 2022. This represents 21.4% of the total population. This is an increase from 4.4 million (17.7% of the population) in 2018. Prevalence of disability is roughly the same for men and women (21.0% for men and 21.8% for women).” (Jul, People with Disability Australia)

Developing self-report disability questions for a voluntary patient registration form for general practice in Australia (2023, Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health)

New Disability Dashboards released “These dashboards offer a new way to access and understand data and insights about the main disability types represented in the NDIS.” (2022, NDIS)

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New Zealand

Child disability data and life outcomes One of the damning statistics:

“In the June 2017 quarter, 42.3% of disabled youth aged 15–24 years were not in employment, education, or training (NEET) [...] four times that of non-disabled youth”. (May, DR Bex's Substack)

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Pacific

Introduction to Disability Data Advocacy Workshop for Organisations of Persons with Disabilities (2023, UNFPA)

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Tonga

Exploring census data (2023, Disability Data Initiative)

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Colombia

Colombia’s journey to produce disability statistics (2022, Data 4 SDGs)

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