COVID-19 Pandemic and Disability: Essential Considerations

Abstract

People with disabilities have greater healthcare needs and are more likely to experience poor health, however, their access to healthcare remains compromised compared to people without disabilities. Despite this well recognised need, people with disabilities often face  barriers to accessing healthcare and they face additional risks to their well-being, because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. In this paper, we posit that people with disabilities are vulnerable in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. We demonstrate this vulnerability through briefly highlighting eight key considerations, as they relate to disability and COVID-19. We conclude that both inaccessible healthcare systems and the presence of underlying health conditions put people with disabilities at additional risk. Further, vulnerability to severe illness and death, post-contracting COVID-19, is exacerbated by the interaction between impairments and personal and environmental barriers existing at different levels, resulting in a disproportionately negative impact for people with disabilities. It is thus not sufficient to look only at underlying medical conditions as an indicator of risk for contracting COVID-19. Additionally, the challenge posed by not routinely collecting data on disability renders potential difficulties in linking disability to COVID-19 deaths/infections. More research is needed on disability and COVID-19 to inform disability-inclusive pandemic responses.