Disabled People Face Research Articles

Intersectionality of Disabled People through a Disability Studies, Ability-Based Studies, and Intersectional Pedagogy Lens: A Survey and a Scoping Review

Disabled people face many social problems in their lives, as outlined by the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. These problems often increase when disabled people also belong to another marginalized identity. The first aim of this study was to report on the extent and what intersectionalities are mentioned in academic abstracts in conjunction with disabled people. Various intersectional concepts are used to discuss intersectionality-related issues. The second aim was to ascertain the use of intersectionality-based concepts to discuss the intersectionality of disabled people. The field of intersectional pedagogy emerged to discuss the teaching of intersectionality linked to various marginalized identities. The third aim was to ascertain the coverage of how to teach about the intersectionality of disabled people in the intersectional pedagogy-focused academic literature we covered. Ability judgments are a general cultural reality. Many ability judgment-based concepts have been developed within the disability rights movement, disability studies, and ability-based studies that could be used to discuss the impact of ability judgments on the intersectionality of disabled people and enrich the area of intersectional pedagogy. The fourth aim was to ascertain the use of ability judgment-based concepts to analyze the intersectionality of disabled people. To obtain data for the four aims, we performed a manifest coding and qualitative content analysis of abstracts obtained from SCOPUS, the 70 databases of EBSCO-HOST and Web of Science, and an online survey in which we ascertained the views of undergraduate students on social groups experiencing negative ability-based judgments. As to the 34,830 abstracts that contained the term “intersectionality”; the 259,501 abstracts that contained the phrase “intersection of”; and the 11,653 abstracts that contained the 35 intersectionality-based concepts, the numbers for these abstracts that also contained the disability terms we used for our analysis were 753, 2058, and 274 abstracts, respectively, so 2.16%, 0.79%, and 2.35%, indicating a low academic engagement with the intersectionality of disabled people. We found many different intersectionalities mentioned in conjunction with disabled people, but most were mentioned only once or twice, with the main ones mentioned being race and gender. The literature covered made little use of most of the 52 intersectionality-based concepts we looked at (35 identified before the study and 17 more identified during the analysis). The literature covered also did not link to the area of intersectional pedagogy. Of the 25 ability judgment-based concepts, only the term ableism was used. As to the surveys, most students saw many of the social groups experiencing negative ability judgments, suggesting that the ability judgment-based concepts might be a useful tool to discuss intersectional consequences of ability judgments, such as intersectional conflict. Our data might be useful for intersectionality studies, intersectional pedagogy, disability studies, ability-based studies, and other academic fields that engage with intersectionality or with disability issues. Our study might also be useful for academics covering various topics to engage with the intersectionality of disabled people as part of their inquiries.

‘Five rungs down’: encounters between disabled parents and the medical institution

Disabled people face particular additional barriers of access to health care. In this article, we explore how these barriers increase when disabled parents require medical attention for their children. Using the small story research technique, we analysed 24 interviews with disabled parents conducted as part of a qualitative-narrative study in Chile. We identified stories in which the participants describe encounters with the medical institution in which they are invisibilised and disempowered. A paternalistic and biomedical approach, which actively ignores how to interact with disabled people, prevails among healthcare staff. Disabled parents irritate the medical institution because they do not have ‘standard’ bodies and are in the position of the carers of others (their children), rather than that of people who require care. These parents develop strategies to resist the way they are treated, making extra efforts to obtain medical attention for their children.

Public Bus Transportation Systems During the Pandemic: Barriers For Passengers with Disabilities

Participation in employment, education and social life is a critical challenge for people with disabilities. In order to identify the difficulties that disabled people face throughout the day, it is necessary to understand their characteristics and problems realistically. In this study, the obstacles experienced by disabled passengers who prefer bus transportation to meet their transportation needs, especially in physically accessing the transportation system and obtaining information, were examined and focused on how these obstacles took shape during the pandemic period. In the study, within the framework of a semi-structured survey, 43 disabled passengers were asked to describe the entire process of bus services, from the stage of obtaining information about the journey to reaching the final destination. It was focused on what kind of additional obstacles were created to the experiences and difficulties experienced by disabled passengers during the pandemic precaution measures implemented in Istanbul. It has been determined that the pandemic period and subsequent measures have revealed many additional obstacles, such as psychological distress, for disabled passengers, and that the society should be made aware of the unique characteristics of disabled people (for example, disability is not just a physical issue) and other concerns. One of the results of the study is that service providers and decision makers should consider a more detailed approach depending on the type of disability in the decision-making process.

SMGR-BS: Stacking Multiple Gated Recurrent Butterfly Search Model-Based Innovative AAL for Aging and Disabled Individuals

Ambient assisted living (AAL) for aging and disabled people involves creating supportive environments that leverage technology to improve the quality of life and independence of these individuals. Traditional methods for developing AAL solutions for aging and disabled people face several challenges, such as scalability, high costs, and privacy concerns. To tackle these complexities, this article proposed a novel method named stacking multiple gated recurrent-based butterfly search (SMGR-BS) for the development of AAL for aging and disabled people. In this study, stacking multiple gated recurrent units are utilized to capture intricate temporal dependencies in sensor data, and the deep recurrent neural network extracts the features from the variety of sensor inputs. Also, the butterfly optimization algorithm with a local search strategy is employed to fine-tune the parameters and enhance the effectiveness of the SMGR-BS method. In this work, the experiments are conducted on the Mobile HEALTH dataset, and the performance evaluation of the SMGR-BS method involves analyzing its effectiveness based on evaluation metrics, namely specificity, F1-score, recall, precision, and accuracy, and comparing its performance against existing methodologies to assess its effectiveness. The experimental results illustrate the effectiveness of the SMGR-BS method for developing AAL for aging and disabled people.

Barriers to inclusion: Incorporating the social model in the study of children’s understanding of disability

How can we improve children’s attitudes toward and their treatment of disabled peers? One way is by targeting the model that non-disabled children hold about disability, which in Western cultures tends to be that the challenges disabled people face arise from intrinsic factors, or characteristics inherent to the individual (i.e., the medical model of disability). In this paper, we describe a model of disability that highlights external factors contributing to the challenges disabled people face (i.e., the social model). Drawing on research showing that children’s attitudes toward other stigmatized groups can be improved as they learn about structural explanations for group disparities, we suggest that exposing children to the social model of disability may have similarly beneficial effects on the ways they think about and treat disabled peers. We highlight some challenges that this approach may encounter–challenges that, we argue, cognitive developmentalists are well-positioned to address.

Occupational Concepts: An Underutilized Resource to Further Disabled People and Others Being Occupied: A Scoping Review

Background: Being occupied is an important factor in human well-being and ranges from paid and unpaid work to activities of daily living. Various occupational concepts that do not contain health in the phrase such as “occupational justice” are employed to engage with the social barriers people experience in being occupied. The aim of this study was to understand better to what extent the non-health occupational concepts are used in the academic literature to discuss the social barriers disabled people face in being occupied and whether these occupational concepts are used to enrich discussions in areas that impact the reality of occupation in general such as equity/equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI), science and technology governance, well-being and the impact of environmental issues. Methods: a scoping review of academic abstracts employing SCOPUS, the 70 databases of EBSCO-HOST and Web of Science was performed. Results: We found 24,104 abstracts for the 28 occupational concepts we used in general and 624 abstracts in conjunction with disability terms. Of these 28 occupational concepts, “occupational performance” was mentioned the most (in 9739 of the 24,104 and 397 of the 624 abstracts). The next concept “occupational engagement” was already present in one tenth or less. Occupational justice was present in 700 of the 24,104 and 14 of the 624 abstracts. Furthermore, within the 24,104 and 624 abstracts EDI, science and technology governance, environmental topics, and well-being measures were rarely or not mentioned. Most of the 624 abstracts originated from occupational therapy journals. Only 23 of the 624 abstracts originated from journals with “disability”, and none with “disability studies” in the title. Conclusion: Non-health occupational concepts are underutilized in discourses that focus on decreasing the social barriers to being occupied in general and in relation to disabled people, which is a missed opportunity and should be fixed.

Coverage of Allies, Allyship and Disabled People: A Scoping Review

Disabled people face many problems in their lived reality, as evidenced by the content of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Disabled people are constantly engaged in activism to decrease their problems. However, disabled people cannot do all the work by themselves and need allies (who can be so-called non-disabled people or disabled people of a different background to other disabled people) given the many barriers disabled people face in being activists, given the precarious lived reality of many, and given the many problems in need of solving. At the same time, the expectations linked to being an authentic ally of disabled people pose many challenges and stressors and a danger of burnout for the ally. Therefore, the aim of this study was to better understand the academic coverage of allyship and allies in relation to disabled people in general, and specifically the coverage of challenges, stressors, and danger of burnout for allies of disabled people. To fulfill this aim, we performed a scoping review of academic abstracts and full texts employing SCOPUS, the seventy databases of the EBSCO-HOST and the Web of Science. Of the 577 abstracts, covering allies and allyship in relation to disabled people that were downloaded, 306 were false positives. Of the 271 relevant ones, the content of six abstracts suggested a deeper coverage of allyship/allies in the full texts. Within the full texts, two mentioned ally burnout and four mentioned challenges faced by allies. Among the 271 abstracts, 86 abstracts mentioned allies without indicating who the allies were, 111 abstracts mentioned specific allies with technology as an ally being mentioned second highest. Sixty-three abstracts covered specific topics of activism for allies. Furthermore, although searching abstracts for equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) related phrases, terms, and policy frameworks generated sixty-three abstracts, only three abstracts mentioned disabled people. Abstracts containing science and technology governance or technology focused ethics fields terms did not generate any hits with the terms ally or allies or allyship. Searching abstracts and full texts, phrases containing ally or allies or allyship and burnout had 0 hits, ally terms with stress* generated four hits and phrases containing anti-ableism, or anti disablism, anti-disableist, anti-disablist, anti-ablist, or anti-ableist with ally terms had 0 hits. Our findings show many gaps in the coverage of allies and allyship in relation to disabled people especially around the barriers, stressors, and burnout that authentic allies of disabled people can face. These gaps should be filled given that disabled people need allies and that there are many challenges for being an authentic disabled or non-disabled ally of disabled people.

People with Disabilities and Labour Market Barriers: The Perspectives of Israeli Social Workers

Abstract Social workers play a key role in supporting the labour market inclusion of disabled people. Nevertheless, we know little about how they perceive the barriers that disabled people face and their role in addressing them. In particular, we need to know more about the extent to which they adopt an individualised versus a social model of disability. To address this gap, semi-structured interviews were conducted with twenty-three Israeli social workers providing employment-related services via public and non-profit organisations. A thematic analysis revealed that the participants tended to view their clients’ barriers as related to individual characteristics, including their impairment, level of functioning and soft skills. Whereas social barriers were acknowledged as well, these were usually framed as related to employers’ attitudes, including ignorance, stigma, fear and distrust. In addition, recognition of these social barriers was usually detached from the social workers’ daily, individualised practices.

Burnout through the Lenses of Equity/Equality, Diversity and Inclusion and Disabled People: A Scoping Review

Burnout is a problem within the workplace including in higher education, the activity of activism, and in reaction to experiencing systemic discrimination in daily life. Disabled people face problems in all of these areas and therefore are in danger of experiencing “disability burnout”/”disablism burnout”. Equity/equality, diversity, and inclusion” (EDI) linked actions are employed to improve the workplace, especially for marginalized groups including disabled people. How burnout is discussed and what burnout data is generated in the academic literature in relation to EDI and disabled people influences burnout policies, education, and research related to EDI and to disabled people. Therefore, we performed a scoping review study of academic abstracts employing SCOPUS, the 70 databases of EBSCO-HOST and Web of Science with the aim to obtain a better understanding of the academic coverage of burnout concerning disabled people and EDI. We found only 14 relevant abstracts when searching for 12 EDI phrases and five EDI policy frameworks. Within the 764 abstracts covering burnout and different disability terms, a biased coverage around disabled people was evident with disabled people being mostly mentioned as the cause of burnout experienced by others. Only 30 abstracts covered the burnout of disabled people, with eight using the term “autistic burnout”. Disabled activists’ burnout was not covered. No abstract contained the phrase “disability burnout”, but seven relevant hits were obtained using full-text searches of Google Scholar. Our findings suggest that important data is missing to guide evidence-based decision making around burnout and EDI and burnout of disabled people.

How can we create a diverse, equitable and inclusive workplace in society without the voice of disability? Lessons from Ghana

AbstractIn Africa, the work experiences of disabled people can help employers and the government build more inclusive workplaces. Nonetheless, research exploring disabled people's work experiences at various employment stages is limited, particularly in Africa. The study applies ethnographic research methods to examine the work experience of those with visual, speech, hearing, mobility and psychological disabilities in Ghana. Data were coded and analysed using content and descriptive methods. The findings suggest that disabled people face several barriers, including inadequate accommodation, negative stereotyping, stigmatization, discrimination and poor performance evaluation at work. This paper argues that transformational leadership is a prerequisite for African governments and private sector employers seeking to improve the workplace environment and build an inclusive culture within these spaces.

Disabled People Working in the Disability Sector: Occupational Segregation or Personal Fulfilment?

Disabled people face many forms of exclusion on the labour market. To what extent is work in the disability sector a manifestation of this exclusion or a solution to it? Defined here as working for a disability organisation or specialising in disability in one’s occupation, work in the disability sector represents an under-documented aspect of the employment experiences of disabled people. This article uses it as a point of departure to theoretically and methodologically operationalise Carol Thomas’s social relational approach of disability to the study of employment. Drawing on biographical interviews conducted in France with people with either mobility or visual impairments, this study shows the ambivalent nature of work in the disability sector, which is diversely experienced as a form of occupational segregation or a means of self-fulfilment.

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Cancer detection, diagnosis, and treatment for adults with disabilities

About 15% of the global population-more than 1 billion people-have a disability. People with early-onset disability are now living into middle and older ages and are therefore at risk for adult cancer. Overall, disabled people are more disadvantaged in social determinants of health and are more likely to have risk factors associated with cancer than people without disabilities. People with disabilities often experience disparities in breast and cervical cancer screening compared with people who do not have disabilities, and patterns in colorectal cancer screening disparities are inconsistent. The minimal evidence that exists relating to the timeliness of cancer diagnosis, treatment, and outcomes for people with disabilities suggests differential treatment and higher cancer-related mortality than for people without disabilities. Worldwide, disabled people face barriers to obtaining cancer care, including inaccessible medical diagnostic equipment, ineffective communication accommodations, and potentially biased attitudes among clinicians. Ensuring equitable cancer care for people with disabilities will therefore require eliminating not only physical but also attitude-based barriers to their care.

“Someone Like Anyone Else”: A Qualitative Exploration of New Zealand Health Professional Students’ Understanding of Disability

Background: One in four New Zealanders identify as disabled. Disabled people, including Māori (the indigenous people of New Zealand (NZ)), experience health disparities. Systemic and individual health professional (HP) biases are factors that may affect health outcomes. Disability education is a means for improving attitudes and behaviors towards disabled people. The objective of this study was to explore NZ HP students’ understanding of disability and health-related concepts. Methods: HP students from one tertiary institution in NZ were interviewed through Zoom video call about their understanding of disability and health. A relativism paradigm and contextualism epistemology (underpinned by the socio-ecological model) shaped the reflexive thematic analysis. Transcripts were analyzed at a deductive and latent level. Results: Nine HP participants, from different professional courses and cultural backgrounds, were interviewed. Three main themes influenced participants’ understanding of disability: life experiences, professional education, and societal exposure. Participants who had more experience with disabled people had a deeper and more nuanced appreciation of the challenges disabled people face in accessing health services and obtaining equitable health outcomes. Cultural background also influenced the participants’ understanding of disability. Participants preferred more experiential learning methods to improve their knowledge of disability concepts. Lastly, expectations of inclusion are determined by observing social norms. Conclusion: Participants reported learning just a few models of disability. The HP students predominantly came from a perspective of ensuring equality rather than equity. There was limited recognition of the systemic biases that exist within multiple social determinants and how these perpetuate health inequities for disabled people. A socio-ecological consideration of disability throughout the curricula, self-reflection, acknowledging systemic bias, and proactively including disabled people as HP students and teachers are potential means for addressing health inequities.

Disabled in Society - A Scoping Review on Persons Living with Multiple Sclerosis and Disability.

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic neurological disease with an increasing prevalence. As such, most studies are devoted to various medical aspects of the disease. The theoretical framework used in this scoping review was the social model of disability – a perspective focusing on environmental barriers and discrimination that disabled people face in society. The aim was to explore previous research on disabling barriers and discrimination against persons with MS, and to identify research gaps in connection with this population. The scoping review was performed in two steps: (1) a main search in 8 databases, followed by (2) citation and reference searches. The final sample consisted of 96 included articles. The result showed that most studies had been conducted in the US, and the dominant area of research was employment discrimination. Previous research has studied MS related to various areas, such as employment, social welfare and social services, transportation, housing and accessibility of public places, health services, and in relation to others within society. However, this scoping review showed that although several areas of disability and MS had been included in the previous research, most of the identified areas were researched in few studies without the possibility to generalize the findings to a larger population or a cross-cultural context. Few studies compared differences between persons with MS based on gender, age, and ethnicity. What impact the invisible symptoms of MS had on disability was also researched to a limited extent. The findings have implications for future research and clinical practice. To better understand living conditions for persons with MS from a global perspective, more research across countries is needed. Healthcare professionals need to assess the individual’s situation regarding both symptoms of the disease and the impact of societal barriers and discrimination to optimize care of persons with MS.

Education level and disability type as causes for the discernible wage divergence for people with disabilities

In Cyprus, disabled people face many difficulties in accessing employment, as more than 10,000 people with appropriate qualifications remain unemployed. According to worldwide estimates, disabled people receive lower wages compared to individuals without disabilities due to being either unemployed or underemployed more frequently. Using other countries with similar cultural and legal environments, this study examined the correlation between disabled people's wage levels and their disability types and educational levels. In order to gather primary data used for this correlational and regression study, 117 online questionnaire responses were collected from 6,000 registered members with physical disabilities in related organizations in Cyprus. The study examined the effect of education and disability type, on wages for disabled individuals in Cyprus using a cross-sectional survey utilizing judgment sampling (purposive sampling), in order to identify possible relationships between them, and hence see if education and disability cause a lower wage. According to the results, the two variables are not significantly associated with disability wages in Cyprus. These coefficients differ, however, between the variables 'education' and 'type of disability,' showing that in Cyprus education predicts the wage levels for disabled workers, as it is for other groups.

The experiences of disabled people in the United Arab Emirates: Barriers to participation in higher education and employment

I draw on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities as a human rights model of disability to analyze how the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is meeting its obligations toward disabled people in higher education and employment. This paper argues that institutions in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi adopted a paternalistic and reactive approach to address the rights of disabled people. Drawing on the experiences of disabled people in the UAE and evidence from interviews conducted from 2016 to 2018, the analysis identifies several key challenges to inclusion that stem from a weak enforcement and accountability framework, which results in a lack of accessibility measures and supports in university and workplace settings. The paper recommends interventions that would create an institutional environment where disabled people are treated as rights holders and given equal and equitable access to higher education and employment. Points of interest This paper studies the barriers that disabled people face in higher education and employment in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The UAE is a very rich oil-producing country located in the Arabian Gulf with a small number of citizens and a large migrant population. The key problems disabled people talked about are how they are denied equal access to learning supports in the university and how employers do not give them measures and tools to do their work. Because the UAE has signed the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), it should not allow that disabled people are treated unfairly or that they are treated in an unequal way. The UAE should make its laws stronger and monitor the implementation of the CRPD.

Review of the Film "Love with Challenges" by D. Tyurin (Director, 2017)


 
 
 There are not that many films in Russia with disabled characters. Even when these characters appear on the screen, their depiction is stereotyped in the majority of the cases and they are represented as either as a burden or as a victim. The genre of these movies is often dramatic. Against such a stigmatizing and pessimistic image of disabled people, the 2017 film by D. Tyurin “Love with Challenges” stands out. This article analyses how the filmmakers turned society's attention to the challenges disabled people face through humour and the genre of comedy, which tricks they used for making the audience see the disabled people as normal instead of isolated and inferior and how the audience perceived it.
 
 

The Impact of Workplace Disability Facilities on Job Retention Wishes among People with Physical Disabilities in South Korea

The 2030 UN Agenda for Sustainable Development aims to end poverty “in all forms” and achieve sustainable development by 2030, while ensuring that “no one is left behind”, including people with disabilities. Disability is referenced eleven times in the Agenda. Disabled people face high risks of poverty because of barriers such as lack of workplace disability facilities. The goal of the study was to examine how workplace disability facilities affect job retention plans among workers with physical disabilities in South Korea and how perceived workplace safety and work satisfaction act as mediators. The 2018 Panel Survey of Employment for the Disabled was used, and we examined 1023 workers with physical disabilities. Path analysis was used to examine the relationships. Results showed that workers whose workplaces provided more disability facilities were significantly more likely to perceive their workplaces as safe and had higher work satisfaction; hence, they were more likely to wish to maintain their present jobs than those whose workplaces offered fewer facilities. However, many workplaces in Korea did not provide any disability facilities. The study provides empirical evidence to support development of policies for improved workplace facilities and work environments for disabled people, in accordance with the UN Agenda.

Disabled Students Seeking Higher Education in Kashmir: A Study of their Experiences

The present study aimed to understand the experiences of disabled students while gaining higher education in Kashmir. According to the conference on the ‘Rights of Persons with Disability’, Article 24, 2(a), disabled persons should not be barred from broader education organizations due to their disability. Besides, the ‘Millennium Development Goals’ and ‘Education for All’ insist on justice, equality and quality education for all. Yet, like in other societies, in Kashmir too disabled people face a large number of obstacles while attempting to achieve higher education. The study was conducted on 21 disabled students studying at the University of Kashmir during the year 2018. The results revealed that disabled people face a large number of obstacles while accessing education and come across a vast amount of challenges such as experiencing harassment, being excluded from the university, lack of institutional support, accommodation, financial support, seminars and infrastructure and facilities necessary to obtain benefits from the equivalent quality of education as their colleague.