The most requested disability statistic is the prevalence rate: how many people have disabilities? But counting individuals alone misses a big part of the picture. This month, the Center for Inclusive Policy (CIP) explains why disability prevalence at the household level tells a fuller story.
Why Do Individual Prevalence Rates Not Show the Whole Picture?
One important reason why people are interested in the prevalence number is that they want to know the size of the population with disabilities in a country. If you want to address poverty, employment, or any other indicator and you ignore persons with disabilities, you are leaving out an important part of the population. Apart from arguing for the basic human rights of persons with disabilities, any effort to achieve a goal for the whole population will be significantly limited by ignoring people with disabilities . And exclusion affects many people: according to the WHO 2022 report, people with disabilities around the world account for more than one billion people.
To understand how many people experience the effects of disability-related exclusion, we also need to consider their families.
The link between disability and poverty matters for everyone in the family. When disability brings extra living costs, the whole household shares those costs.
Another useful measure is disability prevalence in households. It tells us how many people live with at least one household member with a disability. This includes both persons with disabilities and other household members.
What Does the Data Show?
The table below shows some examples. In Afghanistan, about 16% of the population has a disability. However, over 40% lives in a household with at least one member with disabilities.
The table includes countries across three continents. In every country shown, disability prevalence in households is substantially higher than individual prevalence.
Standard prevalence rates substantially underestimate how many people experience the direct effects of disability-related exclusion. To understand its reach, we should also count people living in households with at least one member with a disability.
About Statistic of the Month
It is easy to quote statistics, but it is also easy to quote them badly. One must always be careful to interpret indicators and statistics correctly, as well as to choose the most appropriate ones. If not, you will not get the most appropriate, or even true, picture of reality.
In this monthly column, we highlight a statistic or indicator. We briefly discuss its strengths and limitations and explain how to interpret it.
Explore all our Stats of the Month here.
