Disability Overview - Australian Institute of Health and Welfare

Overview

Disability is an umbrella term for any or all of the following components, all of which may also be influenced by environmental and personal factors:

impairment—problems in body function or structure
activity limitation—difficulties in executing activities
participation restriction—problems an individual may experience in involvement in life situations.

More reports and statistics on disability can be found under Disability services.

24% of adults with disability experience very good or excellent health, compared with 65% without disability

47% of adults with disability have experienced violence after the age of 15, compared with 36% without disability

32% of adults with disability experience high/very high psychological distress, compared with 8% without disability

Service users’ rate of potentially avoidable deaths was 3.6 times as high as the rate for the general population

Rates of potentially avoidable deaths for male service users was 1.5 times as high as the rate for females

5.9% of service user deaths were caused by spinal muscular atrophy