Disability is a term often used to refer to individual functioning, including physical impairment, sensory impairment, cognitive impairment, intellectual impairment, mental illness, and various types of chronic disease.
In the UK, the Disability Discrimination Act ensures that it is unlawful for organisations to discriminate (treat a disabled person less favourably, for reasons related to the person's disability, without justification) in employment, access to goods, facilities, services, managing, buying or renting land or property, and education. Businesses must also make "reasonable adjustments" to their policies or practices, or physical aspects of their premises, to avoid indirect discrimination.
Disability can take many different forms, from wheelchair users, to the deaf community, and from learning difficulties to stroke patients. However, whatever the disability there is support and care out there for all, so check out your local services, as well as the Internet, to find what you're looking for.
Statistics
- At 31st March 2003, over 157,000 people were registered blind
- There are an estimated 10 million disabled people in Britain
- There are over 6.8 million disabled people of working age, which represents 19% of the working population
- 44% of adults over the age of 50 have a disability
- One in five adults in the UK is considered to be functionally illiterate, with a literacy level lower than that expected of an 11-year old
- There are 770,000 disabled children under the age of 16 in the UK, which equates to 5% of all under 16s
- 26 million people in the UK are still unable to read, write or add up
- More than 70% of people in the UK are aware of the DDA, compared to only 40% in 1996 (a year after the Act was introduced)
