Disability Statistics

After the International Year of Disabled Persons (1981), adoption of the United Nations World Programme of Action Concerning Disabled Persons (1982) and the release of the Standard Rules on the Equalisation of Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities (1993), the demand for proper statistics on various human disabilities increased to a great extent. The United Nations was requested by the World Programme of Action to develop an effective system to regularly collect and disseminate data on disabilities. In 2006, the statistics division of the UN started the collection of basic data on various disabilities through the existing Demographic Yearbook data collection system.

Among the different demographic and social concerns that dictate the statistics are size and structure of the population, births, deaths and migration; social security and welfare; distribution of income and consumption, wealth and poverty; public order and safety, offenders and their victims; family formation, families and households; health, human functioning and disability; housing and its environment; learning and education; economic activity; and allocation of time and time use.

The sources for the different data are the administrative records, population and housing censuses and social and demographic surveys. The standards and methods include principles and recommendations and handbooks, guidelines and training manuals. Across the world, statistical data of the disabled population is based on different factors like disability definitions, data collection techniques, answers to the survey questions by respondents, etc. In some countries the survey questions include people suffering from age-related disabilities. Some other countries measure disability on the basis of the severity of an individual's impairment.

As per the World Health Organisation (WHO), there are about 600 million people suffering from some form of disability in the world. This means about 10 per cent of the population in the world is disabled. This number would increase further due to various other factors like increase in population, rising number of aged people and advancement in medical inventions. According to United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), 80 per cent of such disabled people live in the developing countries. World Bank estimates that 20 per cent of the world's poorest people are also disabled.

The disability statistics are used by a diverse group. Policy analysts, researchers, activists, scholars — each of them use their expertise and perspective to understand and use the data. The different terminologies and concepts used in the data are familiar to these people but can be unfamiliar to the lay man. The annual disability status reports of various countries provide the policy makers, reporters, disability advocates and the general population with a summary of the economic, social and demographic statistics on the disabled population. Information on the size of the population and prevalence of disability in various demographic subpopulations can be obtained from these statistics. Apart from that, the status of employment, household incomes and earnings of the disabled persons can also be checked.

Often, there can be a difference between the actual number of disabled people and the statistical reports. Several reasons account for such differences like varying definitions of disability, changes in the disability questionnaire, different data sources, different times of the year or age groups and a change in the base population that is being considered.

• Emma Bullock
• 13/05/2009, 9:59 AM
• 0 Comments