Health Equity for Persons with Disabilities to Achieve Health for All

Health equity is a critical component of the sustainable development agenda and an essential element of countries’ path towards Universal Health Coverage (UHC). In the past decade, demographic, health and socioeconomic shifts, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, have widened the gap between various groups of populations, leaving the most marginalized experiencing the worst health inequities.

Persons with disabilities experience persistent inequalities in health, which contributes to poorer health outcomes and earlier deaths – up to 20 years compared to persons without disabilities. These inequities are not necessarily linked to a person’s underlying health condition or impairment, but rather to barriers in the health system overall. Given global challenges including climate change, which disproportionately impacts persons with disabilities, those inequities are likely to increase.

In this interactive session, we invite global health actors to explore concrete actions to make health systems more inclusive of persons with disabilities and advance health equity. High-level governmental representatives currently spearheading the work for inclusive health will share their experiences in implementing solutions on a national level to accelerate this process. Persons with disabilities and civil society will highlight the importance of inclusive approaches in successful strategic planning in the health sector, including at community level. This event will be a precursor to wider discussions on health equity at the Global Disability Summit, co-hosted by Germany, Jordan, and the International Disability Alliance in 2025.