Links across disabilities: unveiling associations between functional domains

Area of Science:

• Public Health
• Epidemiology
• Disability Studies

Background:

• Individuals with disabilities face higher mortality and poorer health outcomes compared to the general population.
• Understanding the interconnectedness of functional difficulties is crucial for targeted interventions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To estimate the correlations between functional difficulties across various domains in six diverse countries.
• To identify which functional domains are most frequently associated with difficulties in others.

Main Methods:

• Utilized national census data on disability from six countries: Mauritius, Morocco, Senegal, Myanmar, Vietnam, and Uruguay.
• Employed logistic regressions to calculate weighted odds ratios (ORs) for the association between functional difficulties in different domains, adjusting for age, sex, and location.
• Conducted sensitivity analyses to ensure the robustness of the findings.

Main Results:

• Consistently found significant positive correlations between functional difficulties across all domains and age groups (18-44 and 45+ years) in all studied countries.
• Cognition, mobility, and hearing domains exhibited the highest correlations with other functional difficulties, particularly hearing with cognition and mobility with cognition.
• Uruguay, the sole high-income country in the study, displayed the lowest inter-domain correlations.

Conclusions:

• The study confirms consistent positive associations in the experience of functional difficulties across multiple domains in the studied populations.
• These correlations may indicate systemic barriers in accessing social and healthcare services, potentially leading to preventable functional decline.
• Further research is recommended to investigate the trajectories of functional difficulties and identify structural barriers within communities and healthcare settings.