Duttine A.1
1London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, United Kingdom
Background: Recent global health trends have begun to focus more on the impact and prevalence of non-communicable diseases (NCDs). The region of the Americas, led by the Pan American Health Organisation, have been at the forefront of this movement and have developed a number of policies pertaining to the prevention and control of NCDs within their region.
At the same time, there has been a growing recognition of disability as a human right and a challenge for the public health sector to better address. Notably the UN Convention of Rights for Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) and the 2013 Word Heath Assembly resolution and subsequent action plan for disability and health (DAP) have outlined the need for better integration of disability within global health planning and service implementation.
According to the 2013 Global Burden of Disease report, NCDs are thought to account for as much as 82% of all years lived with disability. Furthermore, persons with disability may be at an increased risk of developing NCDs. As such, it is imperative that both appropriate reference to management of disability arising from NCDs and addressing risk factors amongst persons with disabilities be addressed within NCD policy and planning.
At the same time, there has been a growing recognition of disability as a human right and a challenge for the public health sector to better address. Notably the UN Convention of Rights for Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) and the 2013 Word Heath Assembly resolution and subsequent action plan for disability and health (DAP) have outlined the need for better integration of disability within global health planning and service implementation.
According to the 2013 Global Burden of Disease report, NCDs are thought to account for as much as 82% of all years lived with disability. Furthermore, persons with disability may be at an increased risk of developing NCDs. As such, it is imperative that both appropriate reference to management of disability arising from NCDs and addressing risk factors amongst persons with disabilities be addressed within NCD policy and planning.
Purpose: This project aims to assess the appropriateness of selected Non Communicable Disease (NCD) policies of the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) in relation to recent global legislation around disability and health.
Methods: An adapted version of a health policy analysis process proposed by Law (2008) will be utilized. A documentary analysis of selected PAHO NCD related policies will be undertaken. Language and content from three pivotal disability related documents - the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the WHO Disability Action Plan 2014-21 and PAHOs own Disability and Rehabilitation Action Plan will be used as a marker for health policy standards. Secondly, a qualitative process of semi structured interviews of key staff within the PAHO NCD team will attempt to further unpack the process involved in policy development within the NCD Unit of PAHO and the level of understanding and inclusion of disability focused language and content.
Results: Results are currently being developed and interviews are due to take place in November 2016 with full analysis done in December 2016. Initial document analysis shows some positive compliance and language overlap between recognised disability policy language and PAHO NCD policy, though this is highly inconsistent. Implied language is also common.
Conclusion(s): As the final data collection has not been collected, conclusions are still forthcoming.
Implications: The method will provide a useful tool for disability and rehabilitation policy within mainstream health policy.
Funding acknowledgements: This the Organisational and Policy Analysis project of the doctorate programme within London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
Topic: Globalisation: health systems, policies & strategies
Ethics approval: Ethics approval was sought from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
All authors, affiliations and abstracts have been published as submitted.
