Assessing the impact of disability in people's lives

In this step, lead educator Professor Hannah Kuper will discuss how we assess the impact of disability in people’s lives. Throughout this course, we have heard that there are many potential negative impacts of disability on people’s lives. For instance, people with disabilities may be more vulnerable to poverty, experience higher levels of violence, and have greater healthcare needs.

Professor Kuper describes three main reasons why we may want to measure the impact of disability through research studies:

• To generate evidence that can be used to advocate for the importance of a focus on disability, and disability-inclusion

• To design appropriate interventions based on the evidence on impact

• To work out whether interventions are effective at improving outcomes for people with disabilities

As always, we would love to hear your thoughts about this step. The next two steps will build on this step by considering measurement of lived experience of disability – through both qualitative and quantitative methods.