UCL Institute of Epidemiology and Healthcare, London, UK.
University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.
Int J Equity Health. 2021 Nov 24;20(1):247. doi: 10.1186/s12939-021-01580-6.
There has been little research on the impact of the 2014-2015 West African Ebola crisis on people with disabilities. This paper outlines the way in which the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) outbreak in Liberia in 2015 highlighted existing inequalities and exclusion of people with disabilities and their households.
The results presented here are part of a larger ESRC/DFID-funded mixed methods research project in Liberia (2014-2017) which included a quantitative household survey undertaken in five counties, complemented by qualitative focus group discussions and interviews with people with disabilities and other key stakeholders. Uniquely, this research gathered information about people with disabilities' experience of the EVD outbreak, as well as additional socioeconomic and inclusion data, that compared their experience with non-disabled community members.
Reflections by people with disabilities themselves show knowledge, preparation, and responses to the EVD epidemic was often markedly different among people with disabilities due to limited resources, lack of inclusion by many mainstream public health and medical interventions and pre-existing discrimination, marginalisation and exclusion. Interviews with other key stakeholder revealed a lack of awareness of disability issues or sufficient training to include this population systematically in both Ebola response activities and general health services. Key findings include the need to understand and mitigate direct and indirect health consequences of unequal responses to the epidemic, as well as the limited capacity of healthcare and social services to respond to people with disabilities.
There are lessons to be learned from Ebola outbreak around inclusion of people with disabilities, relevant to the current COVID-19 pandemic. Now is the time to undertake measures to ensure that people with disabilities do not continue to be marginalised and excluded during global public health emergencies.
针对 2014-2015 年西非埃博拉危机对残疾人的影响，研究甚少。本文概述了 2015 年利比里亚埃博拉病毒病（EVD）疫情突显残疾人及其家庭现存不平等和排斥问题的方式。
本文呈现的结果是 ESRC/DFID 在利比里亚资助的一个大型混合方法研究项目（2014-2017 年）的一部分，该项目包括在五个县开展的定量家庭调查，辅之以残疾人以及其他利益攸关方的焦点小组讨论和访谈。这项研究的独特之处在于，它收集了有关残疾人对埃博拉疫情的体验的信息，以及其他社会经济和包容数据，这些数据将他们的体验与非残疾社区成员进行了比较。
残疾人自己的反思表明，由于资源有限、许多主流公共卫生和医疗干预措施缺乏包容性以及先前存在的歧视、边缘化和排斥，残疾人对埃博拉疫情的认识、准备和应对通常明显不同。对其他利益攸关方的访谈表明，他们缺乏对残疾问题的认识或足够的培训，无法系统地将这一人群纳入埃博拉应对活动和一般卫生服务中。主要发现包括需要了解和减轻对疫情反应不平等的直接和间接健康后果，以及医疗保健和社会服务应对残疾人的能力有限。
从埃博拉疫情中吸取到的有关将残疾人包容在内的经验教训，与当前的 COVID-19 大流行有关。现在是时候采取措施确保残疾人在全球突发公共卫生事件期间不再被边缘化和排斥。
