Health

International News

Strengthening health-care pathways for people with Down syndrome. (May, The Lancet Health Longevity)

Separating disability stigma from health stigma: implications for health and rehabilitation research and practice. (Apr, Disability and Rehabilitation)

Associations between disability and tobacco use in 31 low-income and middle-income countries: a secondary analysis of cross-sectional data. The findings “indicated a higher likelihood of tobacco use among individuals with disabilities compared to those without disabilities.” (Apr, eClinicalMedicine)

The autism spectrum isn’t a sliding scale: 39 traits show the complexity. (Mar)

Road Traffic Accidents and Disability: A global health concern:

“When asked why they had not previously considered people disabled in an RTA, the Road Traffic Safety experts interviewed reported assuming some disability organization, government program or medical service would be there to help. Disability experts had not considered the psychological, social and economic implications of being faced with sudden catastrophic disability and assumed that their experiences were no different than that of people disabled through other causes.” (Social Science & Medicine)

What is Required to Support the Implementation of Inclusive Health in Mainstream Programmes? (IDS Bulletin)

A Framework for Incorporating a Disability Lens Women’s Reproductive Health Research and Practice for Healthy Life Trajectories. (2025, Women's Reproductive Health)

Enhancing healthcare access for persons with disabilities: lessons from partnerships between organisations of persons with disabilities and international non-governmental organisations. (2025, International Health)

The Double Bind of Disability. A book on How Medical Technology Shapes Bodily Authority:

“Rebecca Monteleone shows how medical technologies contribute to a cruel double bind, forcing disabled people to be accountable for adapting to a world built by and for nondisabled people while dismissing their lived experiences in favor of medical expertise. Far more complex than simple progress, these technologies are more oppressive than liberating when they place the burden of care on individuals and perpetuate societal ableism that demands that bodies look, move, and function in certain ways.” (2025, University of Minnesota Press)

11 Tips for Advocating Accessible Sunscreen. (2025, Global Albinism Alliance)

WHO adds Sunscreen to Essential Medicines List: A Global Victory for Disability Rights. (2025, CBM Global) See also a note of gratitude from the UN Independent Expert on the rights of people with albinism.

Hospital aesthetics: a book that “argues that contemporary disabled artists are offering a new hospital aesthetics, where health and care are being taken into their own hands and body-minds.” (2025, Manchester University Press)

Leaving no one behind: the impact of disability and socioeconomic status on maternal continuum of care. (2025, BMC Public Health)

The right to health and persons with albinism in the context of skin cancer - Report of the Independent Expert on the enjoyment of human rights by persons with albinism. (2025, OHCHR)

Launch of the WHO Global initiative on health equity for persons with disabilities. (2025, WHO)

People with disability are dying from cancers we can actually prevent:

“People with disability are missing out on screening programs that could help detect cancer early, and after diagnosis, are less likely to survive, our study shows.” (2025, The Conversation)

Draft of WHO Pandemic Agreement “a major step forward for disability-inclusive global health”. (2025, IDA)

The state of healthcare systems for women with disabilities in 2025:

“Women with disabilities represent 18% of all women around the world, equating to approximately 700 million individuals. They face significant health disparities, including a life expectancy reduction of 10-20 years compared to women without disabilities, and worse outcomes across many health conditions and across the life course. Despite these challenges, this topic in health remains underrepresented in major global health strategies and funding priorities. While life expectancy and other health outcome gaps also exist for men with disabilities, women tend to face worse outcomes due to multiple vulnerabilities”. (2025, Missing Billion)

Cancer screening inequities and people with intellectual disabilities —what should we do to close the gaps? (2025, The Lancet Public Health)

A closer look at Global Disability Summit health commitments (2025, Impel Consultancy)

Investing in health justice: A report on funding in international aid. $263M worth of Development Financing for Health was disability-relevant in 2022:

“[Disability-relevant health funding] is growing at +16% per year between 2013–2022, but remains very limited in relative terms” (2025, Missing Billion)

A closer look at Global Disability Summit health commitments. (2025, Global Disability Summit)

Closing the mortality gap for people with disabilities an editorial. (2025, The Lancet Public Health)

Telenursing on primary family caregivers and children with disabilities: a scoping review. (2025, Frontiers in Pediatrics)

Proposed updated description of cerebral palsy based on emerging research and input from people with cerebral palsy themselves. (2025, DMCN)

Assessing disability inclusion in health systems performance The process of developing and piloting a tool in the Maldives and Zimbabwe. An indicator set that allows description of disability-inclusion in health systems. (2024, SSM - Health Systems)

Access to health insurance amongst people with disabilities and its association with healthcare use, health status and financial protection in low- and middle-income countries: a systematic review. (2024, International Journal for Equity in Health)

Health equity for persons with disabilities: guide for action. “Practical guidance on the process that ministries of health should lead on to integrate disability inclusion into health systems governance, planning, and monitoring processes” (2024, WHO)

Guidance to make telehealth services accessible an implementation toolkit. (2024, WHO and ITU)

World Alzheimer Report 2024:

“The report highlights how different communities and individuals experience and address dementia stigma, from advocacy in low- and middle-income countries to innovative outreach programmes for youth and marginalised groups. The report underscores the urgent need to address the stigma and discrimination that exist around dementia globally and provides real-world examples of how this can be achieved.” (2024, Alzheimer's Disease International)

Advancing inclusive care pathways for people with disabilities (2024, McKinsey Health Institute)

The association between disability and all-cause mortality in low-income and middle-income countries: a systematic review and meta-analysis. “People with disabilities had a two-fold higher mortality rate than people without disabilities in LMICs.” (2024, The Lancet Global Health)

Building disability-inclusive health systems

“Our Review documents a broad range of health-care inequities for people with disabilities (eg, lower levels of cancer screening), which probably contribute towards health differentials. We identified 90 good practice examples that illustrate current strategies to reduce inequalities.” (2024, The Lancet)

HIV knowledge and access to testing for people with and without disabilities in low- and middle-income countries: evidence from 37 Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys:

“Men and women with disabilities have lower overall HIV knowledge and in particular women with disabilities also indicate lower testing rates.” (2024, Journal of the International Aids Society)

Best Practices for Cervical Screening for Women with Disabilities: principles for service delivery. (2024, International Journal of Women's Health)

Disability activists online and the worlds they're helping to build. “A social media response to a massive public health failure” (2024, Medicinal Media)

Health-worker education for disability inclusion in health:

“in many settings, the competence and understanding of reasonable adjustments among health workers are inadequate to provide the same quality of care to people with disabilities as to individuals without disabilities.” (2023, The Lancet)

Report on the Assessment of National Eye Health Strategies on Inclusiveness and Health Equity for Persons with Disabilities (2023, CBM Global)

Do people with disabilities experience disparities in cancer care? A systematic review:

“Compared to people without disabilities, PwD had worse cancer outcomes, in terms of poorer survival and higher overall and cancer-specific mortality. There was also evidence that PwD received poorer quality cancer care, including lower access to state-of-the-art care or curative-intent therapies, treatment delays, undertreatment or excessively invasive treatment, worse access to in-hospital services, less specialist healthcare utilization, less access to pain medications and inadequate end-of-life quality of care.” (2023, PLoS One)

Advocacy Toolkit for Inclusive Eye Health (2023, CBM Global)

Reimagining Universal Health Coverage to Leave No One Behind. Notes from “the first-ever disability- and assistive technology-focused session at the World Health Summit”. (2023, Healthy DEvelopments)

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

IDDC reaction to the Declaration on Universal Health Coverage “A new Political Declaration on Universal Health Coverage that marks some steps forward, but demonstrates the weaknesses of global decision-making in delivering on health equity”. (2023)

What role can community health workers play in disability services in LMICs? Evidence brief. “CHWs can be utilized for education, screening and care for common disabilities and are ideally placed to reach these harder to access populations. In addition, evidence exists for effective disability service provision by CHWs for a range of tasks.” (2023, Disability Evidence Portal)

Impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on access to healthcare among people with disabilities: evidence from six low- and middle-income countries. “Key barriers to accessing healthcare during the pandemic included changes in availability of services due to systems restructuring, difficulty affording care due to the economic impacts of the pandemic, fear of contracting coronavirus, and a lack of human support to enable care-seeking.” (2023, International Journal for Equity in Health)

New dialogues between medical sociology and disability studies
Journal special issue (2023, Sociology of Health & Illness)

All-Inclusive Healthcare Increasing accessibility is key to ensuring that all people, including those who are blind or visually impaired, are not excluded from health services (2023, The Ophthalmologist)

How can mHealth be used to improve the health and functioning of people with disabilities? Evidence brief on healthcare provided by mobile phones. (2023, Disability Evidence Portal)

Disability is central to discrimination in health “Overlooking disability issues is not just a question of omitting one diversity marker among many. Disability brings with it a range of embodied challenges, with implications regarding functional limitations, compromised access to health care and information, and resultant health outcomes.” (2023, The Lancet)

Universal Health Coverage for All Ages An agenda for action. (2023, Age International)

WHO guideline for for meaningful engagement of people living with noncommunicable diseases, and mental health and neurological conditions. (2023, WHO)

Evidence brief on how to remove access barriers to healthcare for people with psychosocial, developmental, and neurological disabilities. (2023, Disability Evidence Portal)

The doctors selling bogus treatments to people facing blindness. (2023, BBC)

Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on people with disabilities and implications for health services research. (2023, Journal of Health Services Research and Policy)

HearX hearing care by community health workers using digital technologies. (2023, AT2030)

Achieving Universal Health Coverage fit for an ageing world. (2023, HelpAge)

Healthcare has to be healed Debrief feature on the impacts of health inequities and how we take revenge. (2023, Disability Debrief)

Access to National Sign Languages as a Health Need. A position paper. (2023, WFD)

A Picture of Health: Jo Spence, a Politics of Disability and Illness. A project featuring different artistic explorations. (2023, A Picture of Health)

Global report on health equity for persons with disabilities. See also the press release. “Health systems should be alleviating the challenges that people with disabilities face, not adding to them.” (2022, WHO)

Reimagining health systems for a billion people with disabilities. (2022, BMZ)

Disability-Inclusive Health Care Systems: Technical Note for World Bank Task Teams. “The guide provides the rationale for disability inclusion, tips for engaging in dialogue, information and examples on disability-inclusive practices and operations, and specific guidance on integrating disability into health service programming and delivery supported by the World Bank.” (2022, World Bank)

Promoting equity in health emergencies through health systems strengthening: “Lessons learned relating to disability inclusion in the COVID-19 pandemic can inform health systems strengthening in recovery efforts, addressing underlying barriers to access and inclusion, and in turn improving preparedness for future health emergencies.” (2022, International Journal for Equity in Health)

Evidence brief on addressing intersectional stigma for people living with disability and chronic infectious diseases. (2022, Disability Evidence Portal)

World Alzheimer Report 2022 Life after diagnosis: Navigating treatment, care and support:

“A surprising number of people living with dementia indicated they had not been offered post-diagnosis support beyond the initial information provided immediately after their diagnosis. In lower-income countries, 45% indicated they had not been offered support, while 55% reported they had. In higher-income countries, although 63% reported having been offered post-diagnosis support, 37% indicated they were offered nothing” (2022, ADI)

Reimagining Health Systems that expect, accept and connect 1 billion people with disabilities. “People with disabilities have 2.4-fold higher mortality rates than those without disabilities and are missing 10 to 20 years of life expectancy.” (2022, Missing Billion)

A report on access and equity in the Future of Virtual Health and Care features discussion and practices of inclusion of persons with disabilities. (2022, Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development)

A focus on disability is necessary to achieve HIV epidemic control:

“People with disabilities often have lower levels of access and adherence to HIV treatment due to barriers with regard to the provision of services (eg, inadequate knowledge among health-care workers and inaccessibility of facilities) and the demand for services (eg, absence of autonomy and awareness of people with disabilities of HIV care needs and service availability). ” (2022, The Lancet HIV)

A selection of videos on rehabilitation from around the world shortlisted for WHO's Health For All Film Festival (2022, WHO)

Disrupting Global Health: From Allyship To Collective Liberation:

“We must understand that many disabled people across the world have experienced public health and biomedicine in violent and oppressive ways; and that that history continues to resonate today. So, we must engage meaningfully with (involve them as stakeholders) disabled people’s voices, opinions, activism, and advocacy,” (2022, Forbes)

Chronically ill face life-or-death challenges due to pandemic shortages. “Millions of chronically ill people struggle to get medical supplies amid global shortages.” (2022, Washington Post)

Lessons from Long COVID: working with patients to design better research:

"Scientific research sets the medical and care agenda for patients with chronic illnesses. It also influences the wider social and economic agenda for people living with these conditions. The more socially and economically disadvantaged people are, the greater the potential influence on their lives. This is a huge responsibility that researchers are only able to fulfil with sharp awareness of the power structures involved in conducting research, with humility and with an openness to see things from different perspectives." (2022, Nature)

Inclusive Medicine and Medical Education: Increasing the Number of Clinicians With Disabilities "Their experiences as patients position them to provide recommendations for promoting patient-centered care and reshaping healthcare systems and delivery processes to increase accessibility and improve patient outcomes." (2022, Global Public Health)

Evidence brief on what works to improve healthcare professionals’ competency on disability: “Negative healthcare professionals’ attitudes and stigma towards people with disabilities remain a major barrier in receiving equitable healthcare services. ” (2022, Disability Evidence Portal)

WHO-ITU global standard for accessibility of telehealth services: “very often telehealth platforms are not compatible with devices such as screen readers that facilitate people with vision impairment to access information, or the lack of captioning or volume control in video conferencing impedes persons who are deaf or hard of hearing to interact with health professionals virtually”. (2022, WHO)

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Latin America and the Caribbean

Access to primary healthcare services for adults with disabilities in Latin America and the Caribbean: a review and meta-synthesis of qualitative studies. (2024, Disability and Rehabilitation)

Access to general health care among people with disabilities in Latin America and the Caribbean: a systematic review of quantitative research (2024, The Lancet Americas)

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Africa

Primary Health Systems Fail to Serve People with Disabilities. From Nigeria to Kenya. (2025, Nigeria Health Watch)

Women with disabilities’ use of maternal care services in sub-Saharan Africa (2024, African Journal of Disability)

Have we forgotten our obligation to train health workers on disability? A policy analysis in sub-Saharan Africa:

“Malawi, Lesotho, and Rwanda are notable for their detailed training objectives and evaluation plans within their disability policies. These countries provide examples of more proactive approaches, focusing on specific training needs such as sign language and the inclusion of budgeting for training implementation.” (2024, medRxiv)

Taking steps towards disability inclusive (sexual and reproductive) health: exploring lessons from programming in Ethiopia, Mozambique and Rwanda. One disability focal point in a health centre in Ethiopia said:

“Once we received a deaf woman who came to the center for help. We understood that she was raped and was pregnant, and as showed the test she was HIV positive. Yet, none of us could explain it to her and inform her on necessary treatment. So she left and never came again. We all remember this lady, so we are committed to learn sign language to be able to address such cases next time.” (link to pdf, 2022, See You Foundation)

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Egypt

Opening of addiction treatment center that provides services for people with disabilities. (In Arabic, 2023, Cairo24)

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Ethiopia

Are primary healthcare facilities in Ethiopia complying with accessibility standards for disability-inclusion? an accessibility audit in Bahir Dar City. (May, BMC Health Services Research)

Inequalities in health and healthcare utilization among people with disabilities in Ethiopia: evidence from the 2021/2022 Ethiopian Socio-Economic Panel Survey:

“People with disabilities in Ethiopia had greater healthcare needs than people without disabilities, which were not fully matched by increased levels of healthcare utilization, and they incurred higher healthcare costs, indicating systemic inequalities in health.” (Feb, Disability and Rehabilitation)

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Ghana

Participant perceptions of disability training for health workers: a qualitative study in Ghana:

“First, there are several barriers to implementing training, including the insufficiency of existing training, lack of formality, costs and sustainable funding, evaluation, and poor sign language implementation. Potential improvements suggested included: incentives, strong collaboration and coordination, and better curricula integration.” (2025, BMC Medical Education)

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Guinea

Burden of discrimination faced by persons with disabilities testimonials and survey results, in healthcare and other areas. (In French, 2024, Africaguineee.com)

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Kenya

Kenya is yet to meet the maternity needs of women with disabilities tv news report on Senate discussion of a report. (2023, KTN News)

Healthcare barriers that women with disabilities face (2023, Nation)

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Malawi

Physiotherapy centre helps kids with disabilities. (Video feature, 2025, DW)

Dehumanising hospitals fail mothers with impairments: “the hospital system is not set up for them, so they suffer indignity – and worse.” (2024, The Continent)

‘We live in fear because of our skin’: Malawians with albinism demand action to reduce cancer risk. (2023, the Guardian)

Mismanagement of public resources affecting healthcare of people with disability (2022, Malawi24)

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Mozambique

Prevalence and factors associated with stigma among adults diagnosed with severe vision impairment in rural Mozambique. (2025, International Health)

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Nigeria

Imagining “Deviance” as Disability in a Precolonial Igbo Village in Southern Nigeria: The Mgbowo Example:

‘The Mgbowo imagined disability not through conceptualizations of physical prowess but through behaviors that were considered deviant and antithetical to social stability. This departure from the physical shows the complexity of defining “disability” across time and space.’ (2025, All of Us)

Report on barriers to healthcare access for Deaf Nigerian Women and Girls during Emergencies. (2022, WFD)

Healthcare Services Should be Inclusive of Persons with Disabilities: Here is How. (2022, Nigeria Health Watch)

Albinism group calls for reinstatement of free skin cancer treatment. (2022, Radio Nigeria)

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Senegal

A quest for dignified health care for women with disabilities: “a woman with disability talks about her experience giving birth and how it drives her activism today.” (2022, WHO)

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South Africa

Women with disabilities need better access to maternal, sexual and reproductive health services “Focusing specifically on their experiences of maternal health services, disabled women in the same study reported that nurses expressed visible surprise, and sometimes anger, that these women were sexually active.” (2023, Daily Maverick)

Non-use of healthcare services among persons with mobility impairments in Cofimvaba. Challenges includes “inaccessible roads, geographic inaccessibility, financial accessibility and indirect cost of care, having little or not many health problems, physical infrastructure difficulties within facilities, and attitudinal barriers.” (2023, African Journal of Disability)

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Uganda

Health-seeking behaviours and pathways among people with disabilities in Eastern Uganda: A qualitative analysis:

“Due to challenges in healthcare access, participants often resorted to self-medication, traditional remedies, or home-based care.” (May, NIHR Open Research)

Association of disability and 12-year all-cause and cause-specific mortality: analyses from the Wellbeing of Older People cohort study in Uganda:

“Severe disability was strongly associated with elevated mortality risk among older Ugandans, underscoring the need for targeted interventions to improve health equity.” (Jan, BMJ Global Health)

Access to eye health services among older people with disabilities in Karamoja, Uganda: a qualitative exploration of successful care seeking. (2025, International Journal for Equity in Health)

Exploring the barriers to healthcare access among persons with disabilities: a qualitative study in rural Luuka district, Uganda. In the words of one participant:

“I feel frustrated that even if I get to the health facility, am going to be outside because no one will push my wheelchair into the building without the ramps. When I am well dressed, I have to crawl on the floor from one place to another and get dirty in order to get treatment. That alone hinders me from going to the hospital.” (2024, BMJ Open)

Suggested solutions to barriers in accessing healthcare by persons with disability in Uganda: a qualitative study. (2024, BMC Health Services Research)

The Silenced Voices: Sign Language Interpreters Pave the Way for Deaf Access to Healthcare in Uganda. (2024, The Elephant)

Co-development of a training programme on disability for healthcare workers (2024, BMC Health Services Research)

Hospital and a home: Uganda shelters offer a lifeline to cancer patients. (2022, the Guardian)

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Zambia

Access to healthcare for people with disabilities: a qualitative study:

“Participants reported limited information on available services, stigma from community members and healthcare professionals, limited knowledge on disability and a lack of training for healthcare professionals, and challenges with inaccessible health facilities and transport. Some people with disabilities benefited from government schemes, such as the National Health Insurance Scheme, but implementation faced challenges and not all people with disabilities accessed these services.” (2025, Global Public Health)

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Zimbabwe

A path toward disability-inclusive health in Zimbabwe Part 2: A qualitative study on the national response to COVID-19 “People with disabilities demonstrated good awareness of COVID-19 mitigation strategies, but faced difficulties accessing COVID-19 information and health services. Challenges to the implementation of COVID-19 guidelines related to a person’s functional impairment and financial ability to do so. A key supply-side constraint was the perceived de-prioritisation of rehabilitation services. Further restrictions on access to health services and rehabilitation decreased an individual’s functional ability and exacerbated pre-existing conditions.” (2022, African Journal of Disability)

A path toward disability-inclusive health in Zimbabwe

“Inclusion was facilitated by clinic staff support of people with disabilities’ access to medication through referral to mission hospitals and private clinics, and the lobbying of organisations of people with disabilities.” (2022, African Journal of Disability)

Should disability-inclusive health be a priority in low-income countries? This paper proposed four complementary arguments why it is important to focus on people with disabilities. They include a “a growing rationale that disability-inclusive health systems will work better for all“ and “that they will create cost savings“. (2022, Global Health Action)

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Asia

Fostering inclusion: Advancing social health protection for persons with disabilities in Cambodia, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic and Viet Nam:

“All three countries have dedicated laws on disability that articulate rights in relation to healthcare and rehabilitation with varying levels of specificity. By contrast, legislation guiding the social health protection systems do not make specific reference to disability in any of the three countries” (2025, ILO)

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Bangladesh

Socioeconomic inequalities in disability prevalence and health service use in Bangladesh. (2025, Scientific Reports)

“We bear it and accept our fate”: Gorgeous illustrations and perceptions of healthcare access from people with disabilities in Cox’s Bazar. (2022, Relief Web)

Government launch of health insurance for persons with (some?) disabilities. (2022, Asia News Network) Also on the daily star.

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India

Championing disability inclusion in health systems and medical education: Dr Satendra Singh. (2025, WHO)

Legacies of ableism and the pursuit of disability justice in medicine:

“A culture of ableism in medicine persists due to the marginal inclusion of persons with disabilities in training and governance.” (2025, The Lancet)

Women who are blind identifying possible breast cancers 30 blind women from India trained as part of a global project called “discovering hands”. (2024, NPR)

For disabled aspirants, new clause crushes hopes of nursing career.

“In 2020, INC revised the BSc (Nursing) curriculum for the first time since Independence. Now, its clause 8 states that only those ‘with a disability of locomotor to the tune of 40% to 50% of the lower extremity’ would be eligible for graduation in nursing. This excludes candidates with other disabilities such as muscular dystrophy, dwarfism, acid attack victims, low vision, hearing impairment, speech disability and intellectual disability. Despite so many senior nurses with varying levels of disabilities working in Delhi, none of them were invited to be part of framing the regulations.” (2024, Times of India)

Barriers for medical students with disabilities in the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) (2024, Edex Live)

Situationally Mute The unspoken experiences of queer disabled folx accessing medical care in India (2024, Queerbeat)

Female doctors with disabilities in India say they face double discrimination (2024, CNN)

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)

Power of touch: how blind women are helping detect breast cancer in India. (2023, the Guardian)

‘Hell on earth’: India’s taboos around women’s pain leave endometriosis sufferers in agony. (2023, the Guardian)

As Covid Flares Again, India’s Disabled, Serviced By Quacks Or Not At All, Struggle To Access Healthcare and vaccinations. (2023, Article 14)

A disability-inclusive healthcare delivery system is the need of the hour (2023, Times of India)

Insurers Are Denying Health Cover For Intellectual, Developmental Disabilities. “Despite clear guidelines, insurance companies in India exclude those with intellectual and developmental disabilities from coverage”. Includes insurers denying care after the non-disclosure of conditions often unrelated to the medical need. (2023, BehanBox)

High Court rules that People with disabilities are entitled to health insurance. (2022, Times of India)

Can a Blind Doctor Become a Psychiatrist? discussion of a case that has reached the Supreme Court. (2022, The Wire)

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Indonesia

How accessible are the health facilities in Thousand Islands, Jakarta? Engaging video documentary of an access audit, by Debrief illustrator Kinanty Andini. (2024, Kinanty Andini)

Interview with Luthfi Azizatunnisa studying for her phd. (2023, Missing Billion)

Healthcare Ensured short video feature on accessing universal healthcare. (2022, Disability Justice Project)

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Jordan

Health and reproductive services are not available to women with disabilities report of a study. (In Arabic, 2024, Mena FN)

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Maldives

Disability and the achievement of Universal Health Coverage (2022, Plos One)

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Pakistan

Bringing legislation to life: Navigating intersectional barriers in implementing the Sindh Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities Act (2018) for the healthcare of children with disabilities. (Jun, Plos Global Public Health)

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South Korea

Disability inclusion in health data systems and policy in Korea: time for action:

“In Korea, despite having a well-established administrative infrastructure—most notably the Korean National Disability Registration System—disability-inclusive health data remain limited.” (Jan, Health Affairs Scholar)

Effects of disability-related limitations in daily living on unmet needs: a longitudinal-study. “Limitations in daily life due to disability increase the risk of having unmet [health] needs, an effect that is significantly more pronounced in men.” (2024, BMC Public Health)

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Europe

Haemophilia Rights: The Half a Million Euro Question:

“A person with haemophilia whose treatment is switched without meaningful consent, whose clinician is constrained by tender outcomes, who has no say in decisions that directly affect their quality of life, is not living independently. They are subject to institutional discretion in exactly the way Independent Living principles exist to challenge. Haemophilia belongs on the disability spectrum not because of what it does to the body but because of what institutions do to the person living with it.” (Apr, ENIL)

We have a duty to promote disability inclusive refugee responses to achieve the highest attainable standard of health in the European region. (2023, The BMJ)

Denied the right to health: persons with disabilities have more difficulty accessing healthcare. (2023, European Economic and Social Committee)

EDF position paper Recommendations on cancer screening and treatment. "Unfortunately, the mention of persons with disabilities in EU policies does not translate into concrete actions to ensure their equal access to cancer screening and care, and to address the pre-existing inequalities and factors putting them at higher risk of cancer or inadequate care." (2022, EDF)

Policy brief on disability-inclusive health systems Highlights greater risk factors in health, limited service delivery and poor health outcomes. (2021, WHO)

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Finland

Young adults with severe physical disabilities Negative public health care experiences after their health care transition in Finland (2023, Alter)

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Germany

Demands for more inclusion in the health and care system (In German, 2023, EU-Schwerbehinderung)

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Ireland

Ireland places disability and rehabilitation at the heart of its health system reform (2022, WHO Europe)

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Norway

An Agent-Based Simulation Model of Epidemic Spread in a Residential School. “An agent-based model of a school for deaf children was developed from Norwegian archival sources and 1918 influenza pandemic data to test impacts of non-pharmaceutical interventions. Results show differences in the timing and pattern of spread based on whether the first case is a student or staff member, while epidemics are smaller with more student bedrooms or a hospital ward.” (2023, Scandinavian Journal of Disability Research)

Balancing on a knife-edge: Experiences of older patients with acquired deafblindness when receiving existential care. "The patients can experience empowerment through the maintenance of trust and communion. However, if met with an overprotecting or neglecting attitude, older patients with acquired deafblindness can feel disempowered." (2022, Nordisk Sygeplejeforskning)

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Switzerland

“You're sick” And if I don't agree? (In French, 2025, Couper l'herbe Sous les Roues)

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United Kingdom

Maternal decision-making through temporal uncertainties: The anticipatory biopolitics of Vosoritide in dwarfism communities. (Social Science & Medicine)

Introducing “Energy Limiting Conditions”: The Emergence and Evolution of a New Impairment Concept:

‘The term “energy impairment” is a substitution for the term “fatigue” that disrupts many of the impairment typologies used in UK social administration.’ (2025, International Journal of Disability and Social Justice )

Diagnosed but not believed: Autistic women and the medical gaze. (2025, Elsa Williams)

Starvation death of man with Down syndrome was euthanasia by default – Down’s Syndrome Research Foundation urgently warns about discriminatory end-of-life treatment. (2025, DSRF UK)

Adults with learning disabilities die 20 years early, says report. “It found 39% of deaths of people with learning disabilities and autism were classed as avoidable in 2023, almost twice as high as the general population.” (2025, BBC)

Third of disabled and neurodivergent doctors feel bullied by colleagues, survey finds. (2025, The BMJ)

‘I was devastated’: MP hopes her story will help improve maternity care, as report finds 44% higher risk of stillbirth for disabled women. (2025, the Guardian)

Disparities in maternity care for disabled women. (2025, Missing Billion)

Workforce Disability Equality Standard: 2023 data analysis report for NHS trusts. 23.4% of staff declared a long-term condition or illness in 2023 in the anonymous staff survey. (2024, NHS England)

End of life care: a report “calling for urgent improvements to the process and communication surrounding do not attempt cardiopulmonary resuscitation” and exploring the inequitable impact current practices have had on disabled people and older people. (2024, Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman)

Wheelchairs and weight: 'I haven't been able to weigh myself for 22 years'. (2023, BBC)

A review of advocacy “This report covers in depth research about advocacy for people with a learning disability and autistic people who are inpatients in mental health, learning disability or autism specialist hospitals.” (2023, NDTI)

Thousands with learning disabilities trapped in hospital, some for years “because of a lack of psychological support and overly complicated treatment systems” (2023, the Guardian)

National Health Service crisis: Why are disabled people disproportionately affected? (2023, BBC)

Will the NHS Care for Me? feature by a disabled person on why people with a learning disability are more than twice as likely to die from avoidable causes than the rest of the population. (2022, BBC)

A study on avoidable mortality in children/young people with intellectual disabilities. “Children with intellectual disabilities had significantly higher rates of all-cause, avoidable, treatable and preventable mortality than their peers. The largest differences were for treatable mortality, particularly at ages 5–9 years. Interventions to improve healthcare to reduce treatable mortality should be a priority for children/young people with intellectual disabilities.” (2022, BMJ Open)

Fractured, fighting, fixed: my personal experiences in hospital as a base to reflect on why medical systems struggle with inclusion. (2022, Disability Debrief)

Recognising lived experience is essential to empowering disabled patients. (2022, BMJ)

Warning over early deaths of learning disabled: “adults with a learning disability were twice as likely to die from preventable illnesses.” (2022, BBC)

A BBC show Ellie Simmonds: A World Without Dwarfism?

“A pioneering drug is coming on the market that promises to make children with achondroplasia - Ellie’s form of dwarfism - grow closer to average height. A genetic condition, achondroplasia is the most common type of dwarfism in the UK, and the new treatment raises the question: if cutting-edge medicine can stop disability in its tracks, should we use it?” (2022, BBC)

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Canada

Dismantling systemic ableism in health research “An unheralded accessibility plan from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research is a step toward wider awareness of entrenched disability barriers.” (2023, Policy Options)

Healthcare inclusion and Indigenous people (2023, Abilities Canada)

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Dominican Republic

Guidance for health centres to ensure access and respecting rights of persons with disabilities, with an emphasis on women with disabilities. (In Spanish, 2025, Acento)

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Guatemala

Healthcare Stakeholders’ Perspectives on Challenges in the Provision of Quality Primary Healthcare for People with Disabilities in Three Regions of Guatemala: A Qualitative Study:

‘What stood out in this study, however, were two sentiments expressed by healthcare providers: one, the practitioners appeared to feel the necessity for separate spaces and specially trained staff, with a particular focus on how to interact with people with disabilities; and two, the need for “empathy” in order to provide quality primary care services to people with disabilities.’ (2023, IJERPH)

How do people with disabilities make healthcare decisions? A qualitative study focusing on use of primary healthcare services in three regions. (2023)

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United States

What It's Like To Pay A Healthcare Bill When You're Blind:

“Healthcare bills confuse me, especially the insurance contributions and how they affect what I owe. Many bill pay screens include little icon buttons that open a tooltip with more detail about a line item. Sometimes those buttons aren't labeled, so my screen reader skips right past them. Other times the tooltip opens but I can't find a way to close it and get back to the main page.” (Apr, UsableNet)

Long COVID disability burden in US adults:

“Long COVID’s disability burden rivals that of Alzheimer’s and asthma. Yet Long COVID receives only 14% of its YLD-proportionate funding—$106 million instead of $739.8 million from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Conditions affecting mostly men receive 5.2 times more funding/YLD than those affecting mostly women.” (Mar, Communications Medicine)

Ghosts in the machine: Congressional watchdog finds significant gaps in federal health care and disability data. (Feb, Prism)

Caring for People with Disabilities Series. “This video series, developed by the American Medical Association and Colorado University Anschutz School of Medicine, supports physicians in delivering high-quality, respectful and effective medical care to people with disabilities.” (AMA)

ACA Premium Spikes Will Derail Disabled People’s Careers: “The expiration of the enhanced premium tax credits threatens the economic stability and health coverage of self-employed Americans with disabilities.” (2025, CAP)

This isn’t the first time moms have been blamed for their kids’ autism. “One of the earliest theories of autism is centered on “refrigerator mothers.” Echoes of it can be found in plans to Make America Healthy Again.” (2025, The 19th)

Should the Autism Spectrum Be Split Apart? “Families of people with severe autism say the repeated expansion of the diagnosis pushed them to the sidelines.” (2025, New York Times)

Predisposed: Race, Disability, and Death Investigations:

“Disability, preexisting conditions, or underlying conditions might seem like uncontroversial factors to cite when determining an individual’s cause of death. However, many death investigators have also cited these conditions in deaths caused by state violence or neglect. For example, a 2021 study found that medical examiners cited sickle cell trait, a gene mutation, as a cause or significant factor in the deaths of forty-seven Black people who died in police custody in the past twenty-five years.” (2025, UCLA Law Review)

The Bonkers Wellness Myths That Fueled Trump’s Autism Announcement. (2025, Mother Jones)

Medicaid was my passport to the world. (2025, Cognoscenti)

Medicaid Cuts Will Devastate People with Disabilities and Their Communities. “Cutting Medicaid strips essential home and community-based medical services from people with disabilities.” (2025, Inequality.org)

Medicaid Issue Brief. “Government estimates that the cuts would push at least 10 million people out of healthcare coverage.” (2025, Unbreaking)

Disabled Americans Fear What Medicaid Cuts Could Do to Them. (2025, New York Times)

With disability rights under attack, history offers hope and a possible playbook. (2025, NPR)

Here’s How to Fight Back Against the GOP Proposal to Gut Medicaid. Polling on messaging. (2025, Data for Progress)

Uproar as disability rights protesters in wheelchairs dragged out of House Medicaid meeting: ‘You’re going to kill me!’ (2025, Independent)

People with Disabilities Face Major Barriers to Accessing Oral Health Care:

“Findings from the report show that for adults reporting at least one disability, factors including income, education, and having dental insurance are often linked to oral health outcomes such as self-rated oral health, recency of the last dental visit, having a dental home, and visiting an Emergency Department (ED) for dental care.” (2025, Business Wire)

Republicans Will Use Paperwork to Kick Americans Off Health Care

“Precisely because they’re overlooked, administrative burdens are an excellent political tool to accomplish unpopular policy goals. Consequently, Republicans are proposing to increase burdens to ensure large coverage loss among the eligible.” (2025, New York Times)

Congress voted to kick millions off Medicaid.

“According to the Congressional Budget Office, 10.3 million people will lose Medicaid coverage by 2034, some due to work requirements and others due to paperwork and eligibility checks.” (2025, Cr*pple Media)

Living With Chronic Pain Can Ruin a Person’s Life. Here’s What I Wish I’d Known About Managing It, an essay from Alice Wong. (2025, Teen Vogue)

I’m terrified about what Medicaid cuts could mean for my life. Rachel Litchman: “I’m just one of millions at risk”. (2025, Stat)

Why Are Doctors Reluctant to Recommend Mobility Aids? Reflections and findings from related studies. (2025, Pain News Network)

Improved State-Level Disability Data Are Necessary For Advancing Health Equity (2025, HealthAffairs)

Trump’s Medicaid Cuts Would Leave Millions of Americans Without Health Care. (2025, Mother Jones)

Dynamics of Race and Disability in Healthcare Disparities (2025, Center for Racial and Disability Justice)

Genetic Discrimination Is Coming for Us All “Insurers are refusing to cover Americans whose DNA reveals health risks. It’s perfectly legal.” (2024, The Atlantic)

Johns Hopkins health system to pay disabled patients “The health system will pay $150,000 to the patients who were allegedly denied support people during their hospital stays.” (2024, Washington Post)

Disability Mortality Disparity: Risk Of Mortality For Disabled Adults Nearly Twice That For Nondisabled Adults, 2008–19 (2024, HealthAffairs)

Mask Bans Insult Disabled People, Endanger Our Health, and Threaten Our Ability to Protest. (2024, Teen Vogue)

House Of Representatives Passes Bill To Ban Use Of QALYs In Federally Funded Healthcare Programs. “It’s unconscionable that a healthcare bureaucracy would so callously determine that someone’s life is worth less.” (2024, Forbes)

Aspiring to Disability Consciousness in Health Professions Training “Future clinicians must recognize disability as an aspect of diversity, express respect for disabled patients, and demonstrate flexibility about how to care for disabled patients’ needs. These skills are currently undervalued in medical training, specifically. ” (2024, AMA Journal of Ethics)

U.S. medical schools aren’t teaching future doctors about 7.4 million of their patients. (2023, Stat)

Listening to Black Californians with Disabilities on healthcare experiences. (2023, California Health Care Foundation)

Why This Doctor Is Fighting for Her Patients’ Pain to Be Taken More Seriously “After her cancer diagnosis, Diana Cejas better understood ableism in the medical field. Now, she's fighting against it.” (2023, Teen Vogue)

UnitedHealth uses AI model with 90% error rate to deny care, lawsuit alleges “For the largest health insurer in the US, AI's error rate is like a feature, not a bug.” (2023, Ars Technica)

National Institutes of Health designates people with disabilities as a population with health disparities “Designation, new research program and update to NIH mission are actions to ensure inclusion of people with disabilities.” (2023, National Institutes Of Health) See comment in the Washington Post.

Inside the Private Group Where Parents Give Ivermectin to Kids With Autism “experts have repeatedly said is designed only for large animals and is so concentrated that it can be toxic when ingested by humans.” (2023, Vice)

Denied by AI: How Medicare Advantage plans use algorithms to cut off care for seniors in need. (2023, Stat)

People With Disabilities Deserve Better Health Care. We All Do. (2023, Undark)

Why addiction should be classified as a disability. “How Treating Addiction as a Disability Could Transform Treatment” (2023, Slate)

The disability rights fight intersecting the drug pricing debate. Discussing a bill to ban use of Quality-Adjusted Life Years. (2023, Axios Pro)

National Institutes of Health advances landmark recommendations on disability inclusion and anti-ableism. (2023, Statnews)

Sickle Cell Cure Brings Mix of Anxiety and Hope (2023, New York Times)

‘Why am I having to explain this?’: Seven stories of barriers to reproductive care for those with disabilities. (2023, StatNews)

Autism research at the crossroads “The power struggle between researchers, autistic self-advocates and parents is threatening progress across the field.” (2023, Spectrum)

Blind people still get medical bills they can't read. (2022, NPR)

Revenge of the gaslit patients: Now, as scientists, they’re tackling Ehlers-Danlos syndromes (2022, Stat News)

Disability Dialogues a book on the “Advocacy, Science, and Prestige in Postwar Clinical Professions” (2022, Johns Hopkins University Press)

Doctors Are Failing Patients With Disabilities “Decades after the ADA passed, medical care still isn’t accessible.” (2022, The Atlantic)

Visually impaired people less likely to access health care. A study from the CDC shows that 50% of those with vision impairment reported fair or poor general health compared with 17% without vision problems. (2022, Washington Post)

‘I Am Not The Doctor For You’: important research on Physicians’ Attitudes About Caring For People With Disabilities (2022, Health Affairs) Coverage in New York Times.

Disability & Health In 10 Exhibits: Themes from Health Affairs’ October 2022 Issue. (2022, Health Affairs)

Mistreatment of physicians with disabilities is widespread, study finds. (2022, Medical Economics)

At last, medical guidelines address care for adults with Down syndrome. (2022, Washington Post)

Key groups overlooked in bias training for doctors (2022, The Boston Globe)

The autistic community is having a reckoning with Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA) therapy. Includes interesting reflections on the privatization of autism services and how ‘ABA has become “the single most reliable way to make money in the human services field beyond being a physician.”’ (2022, Fortune)

Severe maternal morbidity and other perinatal complications among women with disabilities. (2022, Paediatric and Perinatal Epidemiology)

Committing to Health Equity for All, Including People with Disability (2022, Mathematica)

Why billions in Medicaid funds for people with disabilities are being held up (2022, NPR)

People with disabilities left behind by telemedicine and other pandemic medical innovations. (2022, CNN)

Ageism: Signs, Causes, and How to Address It (2022, Healthline)

Pregnancy among Women with Physical Disabilities: Unmet Needs and Recommendations (2022, Brandeis)

'I am a medical student with significant hearing loss. ': Here’s what the pandemic has been like for me and others with my disability (2022, AAMC)

Technical Standards from Newly Established Medical Schools: Review of Disability Inclusive Practices: "medical schools may perpetuate historically restrictive technical standards that serve as barriers to applicants with disabilities." (2022, Journal of Medical Education and Curricular Development)

Many doctors are still befuddled by accommodating people with disability (2022, Stat News)

A new book, Deaf Rhetoric “An Ecology of Health Communication” (2022, Spriner)

Program Access, Depressive Symptoms, and Medical Errors Among Resident Physicians With Disability. 'Our study establishes an association between a lack of accessibility and heightened risk for depression and self-reported medical errors during training.' (2021, JAMA Network)

An article on Ableism: Types, examples, impact, and anti-ableism. “In healthcare, ableism can affect interactions with doctors and other professionals, healthcare policies, and health outcomes. The idea that disabled people have less value or lower-quality lives contributes to damaging practices that persist today.” (2021)

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Australia

A new diagnosis of ‘profound autism’ is on the cards. Here’s what could change. (Feb, The Conversation)

All-cause and cause-specific mortality inequalities between people with and without disability: a nationwide data linkage study in Australia:

“Following-up more than 15 million individuals over 9.2 years (138 540 359 person-years), we found that males and females with disability have higher all-cause and cause-specific mortality than do males and females without disability. The greatest absolute mortality inequalities were seen in cancer and cardiovascular disease. Causes of death where rates were lower among people without disability—neurological diseases, diabetes and other endocrine diseases, chronic lung diseases, and digestive diseases—had substantial absolute inequalities and pronounced relative inequalities. We also found substantial inequalities in mortality caused by suicide and unintentional injury. Mortality for most causes increased with age for both disabled and non-disabled groups, with consistently higher rates in the disabled group across all age groups.” (2025, The Lancet Public Health)

Calls to make period products more accessible for blind and vision impaired people. (2024, ABC News)

‘They treat you like an it’: people with intellectual disability on seeing medical professionals. (2023, The Conversation)

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)

Access to general practice for people with intellectual disability in Australia: a systematic scoping review. (2022)

Hospitals only note a person's intellectual disability 20% of the time – so they don't adjust their care. “Potentially avoidable deaths (from conditions that could have been prevented through individualised care or treatment, like viral pneumonia, asthma, or diabetes) are more than twice as likely in people with intellectual disability.” (2022, the Conversation)

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New Zealand

Disabled People’s | Tāngata Whaikaha Experiences of Health Services. (Jun, Health & Disability Commissioner)

Navigating New Zealand's ableist health system with a disability. (2025, RNZ News)

1 in 6 New Zealanders is disabled. Why does so much health research still exclude them? (2025, The Conversation)

Accessibility remains an afterthought – how NZ’s digital health tools risk excluding people with disabilities. (2024, The Conversation)

Woman wheeled herself to hospital when ambulance couldn't take her wheelchair (2022, Stuff)

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Bolivia

Deaf Indigenous Women’s Health Experiences a pilot study:

“These women said they had high level of frustration with hospitals. No interpreters were provided during their interactions in health care settings and they had no clear understanding of their health care needs. They cannot communicate freely with their health care providers. They often depend on hearing female family members such as their mother, grandmother, sister, or aunt during medical appointments to facilitate communication with health care providers, which violates their right to privacy. Because of these communication barrier issues, these women often feel frustrated or resigned to having poor access to health care and lower health care knowledge.”

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Brazil

Disability inclusion in the Brazilian health system: results of a health system assessment:

“Examples of good practise that other countries could learn from include the presence of a General Coordination for the Health of People with Disabilities within the Ministry of Health and the progressive rights-based policies, including the National Policy on Comprehensive Health Care for Persons with Disability and the Brazilian Law for Inclusion. Another important initiative, lacking in other settings, was the national accessibility audit of primary health facilities conducted in 2012”. (2025, Global Health Action)

Access to primary healthcare services among adults with disabilities in Brazil:

“Participants expressed a solid understanding of their healthcare needs and existing obstacles. However, individuals with hearing and visual impairments experience challenges because of communication barriers. In Pernambuco, the Community Health Agent was often the initial point of contact for primary care services. Public transportation lacked accessibility, from buses to driver attitudes, posing difficulties for people with disabilities. More accessible transportation and improved urban infrastructure could enhance service access. High medication costs were reported due to limited healthcare unit availability. Communication accessibility issues, inadequate audio-visual resources and equipment were also identified as barriers. Attitudinal barriers among healthcare professionals and subpar home visit services further hinder access.” (2024, Revista de Saúde Pública)

Inclusion of disability in primary healthcare facilities and socioeconomic inequity. (2024, Saúde Pública)

Persons with disabilities access to health services: perceptions of primary care unit professionals. (In Portuguese, 2024, Saúde e Sociedade)

The National Health Policy for People with Disabilities: An Analysis of the Content, Context and the Performance of Social Actors. “Undoubtedly, the neoliberal offensive on social policies, especially the Unified Health System, is the main obstacle to the effective implementation of the [National Health Policy for Persons with Disabilities]” (2022, Health Policy and Planning)

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Chile

Healthcare access among people with and without disabilities: a cross-sectional analysis of the National Socioeconomic Survey of Chile. Persons with disabilities with more health needs but less likely to have an adult health check-up. (2025, Public Health)

Inclusion of people with disabilities in Chilean health policy: a policy analysis:

“Participants described a fragmented disability movement and health policy, related to a dominant biomedical model of disability. It appeared that disability was not prioritized in the health policy agenda, due to ineffective mainstreaming of disability by the Government and the limited influence and engagement of civil society in policy processes.” (2024, International Journal for Equity in Health)

Inclusive health for people with disabilities in Chile: a national health system assessment:

“The Chilean health system was assessed to have a low progress towards disability-inclusive health. Among system-level components, intermediate progress has been made in governance, health financing, and data and evidence. However, progress in leadership on disability seems low. Among service delivery components, the accessibility of health facilities and rehabilitation and assistive technology showed the best results. However, there were notable gaps in the autonomy and awareness and ability to afford care by people with disabilities, and the capacity of human resources to support this group.” (2024, BMC Health Research Policy and Systems)

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Colombia

Key components in the professional ethics of sign language interpreters in healthcare contexts: a qualitative study in Colombia. (2025, BMJ Open)

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Venezuela

Social prejudices and misinformation prevent women with disabilities from accessing sexual health services. (In Spanish, 2025, Crónica Uno)

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