Global Disability Summit 2022 | Thematic Pre-Summit: Disability Inclusion in the Health Sector
Governments of Ghana and Norway, The International Disability Alliance and WHO
Objective
To galvanize recognition that disability inclusion is fundamental to the success of achieving health and wellbeing for all.
Context
To achieve health and well-being for all, it is essential that persons with disabilities receive the quality health services that they need. More than 1 billion people, or 15% of the world’s population experience some disability. Of this group, 46% are above 60 years.
Currently, the right to health for many persons with disabilities is not realised, because they face a range of barriers preventing them from receiving health services, including assistive technology and mental health services. Yet this right is guaranteed under the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), a legally-binding treaty which most countries have signed. The barriers that people with disability face relate to the physical environment, attitudes of health workers, costs of services, and methods to communicate vital health information.
Disability inclusion in the health sector aims to address such barriers, to ensure that persons with disabilities receive quality, rights-based health services, and to promote their health and well-being, and that of their families, through inclusive public health interventions across the life course.
Everyone will ultimately benefit from disability inclusion in the health sector, since addressing barriers experienced by persons with disabilities contributes to universality, peoplecentredness, and non-discrimination in health services and public health promotion. Older people and frequently unreached populations, such as those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, or people with limited literacy skills, can benefit from disability-inclusive approaches that target persistent barriers to inclusion in the health sector.