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Purpose: It is well established that physical exercise, in general, decreases anxiety and depression. Para sport or sport for people with disabilities is used as a rehabilitation strategy to improve their quality of life. This study aimed to investigate people with disabilities who practise wheelchair fencing, sedentary people with physical disability and conventional fencers, assessed by Short Form 36 (SF-36), by comparing the groups.

Method: Forty-two people from Physical Disability Association of Parana (ADFP) answered SF-36 and were divided into three groups: Conventional Fencers (CF), Wheelchair Fencers (WF), and Sedentary People with Physical Disability (SD).

Results: This study was the first to report the Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQOL) of conventional fencers, wheelchair fencers, and sedentary people with physical disability, using SF-36. The data demonstrated high scores in CF and WF, on seven SF-36 scales of the eight-scale profile, including functional and mental health, role physical, bodily pain, general health perception, vitality, social functioning, mental health. Moreover, the sedentary group had lower scores in most of the domains when they were compared to CF.

Conclusion: The results might provide supportive evidence that HRQOL of WF has demonstrated a positive effect on people with disability since para sport has been used as a rehabilitation programme.

Implication: The implementation of a public campaign is recommended, about sport as a health promoter for disability and rehabilitation. By involving healthcare providers from the area, people with disabilities can be encouraged to participate in para sport.

How to make social protection systems and schemes more inclusive of persons with disabilities is examined. Social protection can play a key role in empowering persons with disabilities by addressing the additional costs they face, yet the majority of persons with disabilities are currently excluded from schemes.

The report identifies a wide range of barriers persons with disabilities experience in accessing social protection to be overcome. It calls for better data on disability, disability-specific and old age pension schemes and expanded coverage; adapting communications about social protection schemes; and improving disability assessment mechanisms. The research underpinning the report comprised involved a review of the literature, an analysis of household survey datasets, and consultations with key stakeholders and persons with disabilities in seven low- and middle-income countries: Brazil, India, Kenya, Mauritius, Rwanda, South Africa and Zambia.

Topics covered include:

• Types of social protection schemes for persons with disabilities
• Levels of investment in social protection for persons with disabilities
• Coverage of persons with disabilities by social protection
• Impacts of social protection on persons with disabilities
• Barriers to accessing social protection and measures to address them
• Links between social protection schemes and other public services

Articles included are:

• A comparison of disability rights in employment: Exploring the potential of the UNCRPD in Uganda and the United States
• Reimagining personal and collective experiences of disability in Africa
• Social participation and inclusion of ex-combatants with disabilities in Colombia
• ‘Inclusive education’ in India largely exclusive of children with a disability
• Participation, agency and disability in Brazil: transforming psychological practices into public policy from a human rights perspective

Purpose: Disability is a global health and a global development concern. To address both issues, a community-based rehabilitation (CBR) approach is increasingly recommended to meet a spectrum of needs, especially for people with disabilities. It is first necessary to understand the perceptions of local, frontline providers, in order to design effective measures for implementing CBR programmes. This paper aimed to understand the conceptions of Primary Healthcare Providers (PHPs) - serving a sub-urban, socially-vulnerable territory in Brazil - about: 1) disability, 2) rehabilitation, and 3) the possible local implementation of a CBR strategy, including any anticipated barriers.

Method: Cross-sectional, exploratory qualitative research was based on focus groups conducted between 2013 and 2016. It involved a total of 78 PHPs serving the western region of the Ribeirão Preto municipality in São Paulo, Brazil. Data analysis was based on Habermas’ critical hermeneutics approach.

Results: PHPs understood disability mostly within the biomedical paradigm. Similarly, the predominant conception of rehabilitation was focussed on enabling individuals’ capacity, more than their environment. For local CBR implementation, the barriers that were anticipated were: 1) difficulties in managing and running action across sectors, and 2) the broader socio-political environment that hardly empowers civil society and is affected by power differentials.

Conclusion and Implications: While local PHPs identified important CBR implementation barriers which are contextual in nature, the predominant conceptions of disability and rehabilitation (i.e., biomedical, impairments-based) also act as a barrier. Contextual and cognitive barriers must both be addressed when envisioning a local CBR implementation

Research papers in this journal issue are:

1. Anticipated Barriers to Implementation of Community-Based Rehabilitation in Ribeirão Preto, Brazil
2. Parental Perceptions, Attitudes and Involvement in Interventions for Autism Spectrum Disorders in Sarawak, Malaysia
3. Utilisation and Satisfaction with Health Services among Persons with Disabilities in Accra, Ghana

Brief reports are:

1. Predictors in the Selection of an AAC system: An Evidence-based Report on Overcoming Challenges
2. Negotiating Future Uncertainty: Concerns of Mothers of Children with Down Syndrome in Kashmir, India
3. Competencies of Students with Visual Impairment in using the White Cane in their Learning Environment: a Case Study at Wenchi Senior High in Ghana
4. Teacher Trainees’ Perceptions of Inclusion of and its Challenges

The importance of online communities for parents of people with disabilities has been discussed by many scholars in the fields of Digital and Disability Studies, showing, for instance, the importance of social support and the formation of social ties. In order to contribute to this scholarship, this paper explores how collective identity models are built and circulated by parents of autistic people in one of the biggest Brazilian online communities about the subject, ‘Sou autista… conheça o meu mundo’ (I am autistic…get to know my world). The results were obtained through a digital ethnography, based on participant observation and an exchange of information with the members of the community studied. Based on the data collected, the study concludes that the collective identity models that circulate in this community can be grouped into legitimising, resistant, and project identities, as postulated by Castells (2010). The different views reflect how parents see autism and represent the ways it is treated in Brazilian society.

Disability and the Global South, 2018 Vol.5, No. 1

The microcephaly epidemic, which started in Brazil in 2015, was declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern by WHO in 2016. Preliminary results of a case-control study investigating the association between microcephaly and Zika virus infection during pregnancy are reported. A case-control study was carried out in eight public hospitals in Recife, Brazil. Cases were neonates with microcephaly. Two controls (neonates without microcephaly), matched by expected date of delivery and area of residence, were selected for each case.

The Lancet Infectious Diseases,  Vol. 16, No. 12, pp. 1356–1363, Dec 2016

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S1473-3099(16)30318-8

The commitment to ‘leave no one behind’ has been a key feature of all the discussions on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Here are three papers setting out the first step to implementing this agenda - the step of identifying marginalised communities. The focus is on two case study countries for each of the three regions, sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, and Latin America and the papers identify gaps in achieving a number of outcomes relating to key SDGs targets for marginalised groups. The paper on Asia highlights people with disabilities in Bangladesh.

This paper outlines the need for greater connectivity & accessibility in less developed countries. Following this, the authors present the benefits of various different ‘mHealth’ solutions, presented through case studies. The report concludes by outlining some of the constraints holding back greater ‘mHealth’ innovation, including financing and sustainability issues