Grabowska Izabela, Antczak Radosław, Zwierzchowski Jan, Panek Tomasz
SGH Warsaw School of Economics, Institute of Statistics and Demography, Warsaw, Poland.
BMC Public Health. 2021 Apr 17;21(1):740. doi: 10.1186/s12889-021-10797-7.
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities [1] highlights the need to create proper socioeconomic and political conditions for persons with disabilities, with a special focus on their immediate living conditions. According to the Convention, these conditions should be built to ensure that persons with disabilities have the potential to enjoy a high quality of life (QoL), and this principle is reflected in the notion of livable areas. The crucial aspect of this framework is the relationship between the individual QoL and the environment, broadly understood as the socioeconomic as well as the technical conditions in which persons with disabilities function.
The basic research problem was to assess the relationship between individual QoL for the population with disabilities as a dependent variable and livability indicators as independent variables, controlling for individual characteristics. The study used a dataset from the EU-SILC (European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions) survey carried out in 2015 in Poland. The research concept involved several steps. First, we created a variable measuring the QoL for the entire population with disabilities. To measure the multidimensional QoL, we used Sen's capability approach as a general concept, which was operationalized by the MIMIC (multiple indicators multiple causes) model. In the second step, we identified the livability indicators available in the official statistics, and merged them with survey data. Finally, in the last step, we ran the regression analysis. We also checked the data for the nested structure.
We confirmed that the general environmental conditions, focused on creating livable areas, played a significant role in shaping the QoL of persons with disabilities; i.e., we found that the higher the level of the local Human Development Index, the higher the quality of life of the individuals living in this area. This relationship held even after controlling for the demographic characteristics of the respondents. Moreover, we found that in addition to the general environmental conditions, the conditions created especially for persons with disabilities (i.e., services for this group and support for their living conditions) affected the QoL of these individuals.
The results illustrate the need to strengthen policies aimed at promoting the QoL of persons with disabilities by creating access to community assets and services that can contribute to improving the life chances of this population.
《联合国残疾人权利公约》[1]强调有必要为残疾人创造适当的社会经济和政治条件，尤其关注他们的直接生活状况。根据该公约，这些条件应旨在确保残疾人有潜力享有高质量生活（QoL），这一原则体现在适居区域的概念中。该框架的关键方面是个体生活质量与环境之间的关系，这里的环境广义上理解为残疾人所处的社会经济以及技术条件。
基本研究问题是评估以残疾人群体的个体生活质量作为因变量，以适居性指标作为自变量，并控制个体特征时两者之间的关系。该研究使用了2015年在波兰进行的欧盟收入和生活条件统计（EU - SILC）调查的数据集。研究概念涉及几个步骤。首先，我们创建了一个衡量全体残疾人群体生活质量的变量。为了衡量多维生活质量，我们使用森的能力方法作为一般概念，并通过多指标多原因（MIMIC）模型将其操作化。在第二步中，我们确定官方统计中可用的适居性指标，并将它们与调查数据合并。最后，在最后一步，我们进行回归分析。我们还检查了数据的嵌套结构。
我们证实，专注于打造适居区域的总体环境条件在塑造残疾人的生活质量方面发挥了重要作用；也就是说，我们发现当地人类发展指数水平越高，生活在该地区的个人生活质量越高。即使在控制了受访者的人口统计学特征之后，这种关系依然成立。此外，我们发现除了总体环境条件外，专门为残疾人创造的条件（即针对该群体的服务及其生活条件支持）也会影响这些人的生活质量。
研究结果表明，有必要加强相关政策，通过提供获取社区资产和服务的机会来促进残疾人的生活质量，这些资产和服务有助于改善该群体的生活机遇。
