Around one billion (15% of the world population) have some level of disability according to the World Health Organization (WHO) and World Bank. The annual costs of childhood disability reported in the studies ranged $450–69,500. In developing countries, the costs ranged $500–7500 while in developed countries it ranged $450–69,500. (The Economic Costs of Childhood Disability: A Literature Review Ahmed Ramadan Shokry Shahat1,* and Giulia Greco2 in the International journal of Environmental Research & public health, 2021 Apr; 18(7): 3531.)
Childhood disability imposes a heavy economic burden on families, health systems, societies & National GDP. The reason for the wide range of costs is the variability in perspective, costs included, methods, and disability type. The annual societal costs for one disabled child could be up to the country’s GDP per capita. The burden is heavier on households in developing countries as most of the costs are paid out-of-pocket leading to impoverishment of the whole family. Efforts should be directed to avoid preventable childhood disabilities and to support disabled children and their households to make them more independent and increase their productivity.
This is why we’re launching our “Mission Disability Reduction and Inclusion” as we want to support families.
Dr. Zafar Mahmood Meenai will lead the initiative and will be supported by an expert group and their Mission will be:
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Convergence of stakeholders.
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Functional Integration of every child.
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Awareness building - Community and school capacity building.
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Family empowerment through multidisciplinary support.
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Improving compliance by videoconferencing, AI, Animation etc.
The initiative will also come in under our fiscal sponsored organisation World Health Service 501 (3) c which will enable investors and donors to support disabilities and inclusion programs and initiatives worldwide.