Publications by authors named "Kuper H"

Background: People with disabilities often incur higher costs for healthcare, due to higher needs, greater indirect costs, and the need for services not offered by the public system. Yet, people with disabilities are more likely to experience poverty and so have reduced capacity to pay. Health insurance is an important social protection strategy to meet healthcare needs and avoid catastrophic expenditures for this group.

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This paper explores the use of participatory video (PV) in a case study conducted in Arcoverde, Brazil, to address the call for greater participation of individuals with disabilities in health and social care planning and research. PV is grounded in similar concepts to the Disability Rights Movement's principle of "Nothing About Us, Without Us" and serves as a potential collaborative tool for individuals with disabilities to shape their narratives and contribute to research. The study was part of a multi-methods research project on healthcare access, with the PV research focusing on primary healthcare in Arcoverde.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study aims to assess and improve the accessibility of primary health facilities for people with disabilities in Luuka District, Uganda, recognizing the health disparities faced by this group.
  • A tool called the Disability Awareness Checklist (DAC) was adapted and pilot-tested, involving youth researchers with disabilities in the adaptation process, to measure accessibility across various indicators.
  • Results showed low median accessibility scores (17.8% overall), with the highest scores in universal design, indicating significant room for improvement in staff training and service linkages.
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Introduction: Early Hearing Detection and Intervention (EHDI) programmes were established to reduce the impact of hearing loss on children. High-income countries (HICs) have resources and knowledge to execute these programmes. However, financial and other resource constraints limit the availability of these programmes to low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs).

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Objective: The aim of the research was to explore the barriers to healthcare access for persons with various disabilities in rural Luuka district of Uganda. The findings will assist in appreciating the challenges persons with disabilities face in accessing Healthcare in a rural setting. These insights will contribute to the development of an intervention to improve healthcare access that is affordable, timely and acceptable.

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Objective: To investigate perspectives of people with disabilities in Brazil regarding the access to primary healthcare.

Methods: In-depth interviews were conducted with 44 individuals with disabilities in Pernambuco, Distrito Federal, and São Paulo between March 2020 and November 2021. These interviews were transcribed, coded, and analysed thematically, using the Levesque framework to identify healthcare access barriers.

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Article Synopsis
  • - The study assessed the prevalence of childhood disability in Tamil Nadu, India, focusing on how functional difficulties affect school enrollment among 29,044 children aged 5 to 17 years.
  • - Out of the children surveyed, 1.0% were found to have functional difficulties, with common issues being related to understanding and walking, and this disability significantly impacted their likelihood of enrolling in school (Prevalence ratio 4.59).
  • - The findings reveal substantial differences across age and socioeconomic groups concerning the effect of functional difficulty on school enrollment, emphasizing a critical need for targeted interventions to improve educational access for affected children.
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Objective: To describe disability-related performance and inequality nationwide in Brazil, and the changes that took place between 2012 and 2019 after the introduction of Programme for Improving Primary Care Access and Quality (PMAQ).

Methods: We derived scores for disability-related care and accessibility of primary healthcare facilities from PMAQ indicators collected in round 1 (2011-2013), and round 3 (2015-2019). We assessed how scores changed after the introduction of PMAQ.

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Eye health and disability are both common among older people, and it is important to understand how disability relates to visual health status and access to services. While people with disabilities face barriers to accessing health services, few studies have measured participants' functional status in domains other than vision and little evidence exists on how disability impacts eye health services access. This paper describes how visual impairment and access to eye health services differ between people aged 50 years and above with and without disability in Karamoja, Uganda, and explores the factors driving that difference.

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Article Synopsis
  • School-based health services may inadvertently exclude children with disabilities, while community-based approaches provide a more inclusive option for addressing their needs.
  • The study focuses on assessing disability prevalence among children aged 5-17 in Malawi and compares the effectiveness of school-based deworming (SBD) versus community-based deworming (CBD) for treating soil-transmitted helminths in these children.
  • Findings show a 3.3% disability prevalence, mainly affecting hearing, remembering, and communication, with boys more likely to have disabilities, which corresponded with lower school attendance and poorer health outcomes.
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Article Synopsis
  • * Researchers conducted 27 semi-structured interviews with individuals with various disabilities in rural Luuka district to gather insights on their healthcare experiences and needs.
  • * Key recommendations include advocating for disability awareness, empowering communities socio-economically, training healthcare providers on disability issues, improving accessibility, and ensuring representation of disabled individuals in health management.
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Background: Around 18% of the population in Chile has disabilities. Evidence shows that this population has greater healthcare needs, yet they face barriers to accessing healthcare due to health system failures. This paper aims to assess the inclusion of people with disabilities in health policy documents and to explore the perceptions of key national stakeholders regarding the policy context, policy processes, and actors involved.

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Background: Children and young people (CYP) with complex neurodisability experience multiple physical, communication, educational and social challenges, which require complex packages of multidisciplinary care. Part of the holistic care required includes supporting the families and parents/caregivers. The aim of the wider study was to introduce a new programme ('Ubuntu') to parents/caregivers and healthcare professionals (HCPs) in order to test the feasibility and acceptability of the concept and content, with the goal of potential adaptation for the UK in mind.

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Introduction: A key Sustainable Development Goal target is to eliminate all forms of malnutrition. Existing evidence suggests children with disabilities are at greater risks of malnutrition, exclusion from nutrition programmes and mortality from severe acute malnutrition than children without disabilities. However, there is limited evidence on the nutritional outcomes of children with disabilities in large-scale global health surveys.

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Background: Interest in modifiable risk factors (MRFs) for dementia is high, given the personal, social, and economic impact of the disorder, especially in ageing societies such as the United Kingdom. Exploring the population attributable fraction (PAF) of dementia attributable to MRFs and how this may have changed over time remains unclear. Unravelling the temporal dynamics of MRFs is crucial for informing the development of evidence-based and effective public health policies.

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Importance: Overweight and obesity affect 340 million adolescents worldwide and constitute a risk factor for poor mental health. Understanding the association between body mass index (BMI) and mental health in adolescents may help to address rising mental health issues; however, existing studies lack comprehensive evaluations spanning diverse countries and periods.

Objective: To estimate the association between BMI and mental health and examine changes over time from 2002 to 2018.

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Article Synopsis
  • A study in Tamil Nadu, India, aimed to assess the prevalence of childhood disabilities and their impact on school enrollment for children aged 5 to 17 years.
  • Out of 29,044 children surveyed, 1.0% had functional difficulties, which were more common in walking and being understood, and these disabilities significantly affected school enrollment rates.
  • The findings indicated that management of functional difficulties can differ based on age and socioeconomic factors, emphasizing the urgent need for targeted interventions to improve school access for affected children.
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Introduction: More than 170 countries have implemented disability-targeted social protection programmes, although few have been rigorously evaluated. Consequently, a non-randomised controlled trial is being conducted of a pilot 'cash-plus' programme implemented by UNICEF Laos and the Laos government for children with disabilities in the Xiengkhouang Province in Laos. The intervention combines a regular cash transfer with provision of assistive devices and access for caregivers to a family support programme.

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Health systems often fail people with disabilities, which might contribute to their shorter life expectancy and poorer health outcomes than people without disabilities. This Review provides an overview of the existing evidence on health inequities faced by people with disabilities and describes existing approaches to making health systems disability inclusive. Our Review documents a broad range of health-care inequities for people with disabilities (eg, lower levels of cancer screening), which probably contribute towards health differentials.

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Background: Globally, 1·3 billion people have a disability and are more likely to experience poor health than the general population. However, little is known about the mortality or life expectancy gaps experienced by people with disabilities. We aimed to undertake a systematic review and meta-analysis of the association between disability and mortality, compare these findings to the evidence on the association of impairment types and mortality, and model the estimated life expectancy gap experienced by people with disabilities.

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