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Disability rates
According to the World Health Organization 1 billion people, amounting to 15% of the world's population live with some sort of physical, intellectual, sensory, or mental health disability that is significant enough to affect their daily living. Separate statistics containing the number of people living with a mental or physical disability in 18 countries have been compiled in this spreadsheet.
METHODOLOGY
To obtain statistics on the mentally and physically disabled population in the 18 countries, our initial strategy was to search through government publications and databases in each country, non-profit organizational databases, statistics published by local/international organizations focused on health and disabilities, research papers, and other relevant articles published by reputed organizations. While we were able to find pre-compiled statistics for some countries, in most instances official statistics that provide a clear distinction between mental and physical disability prevalence rates were not available.
Our next strategy was to identify both the total population in each country with disabilities and the prevalence of mental disabilities and then calculate the remaining figure under the "physically/other disabled" category. The figures were obtained using the most recent data available, given the fact that national surveys on disabilities are conducted are not conducted frequently. The calculations made to obtain the figures presented in this spreadsheet are as follows.
CANADA
- Since there are 3.8 million disabled people and 1.9 million of them are mentally disabled, the physically disabled population is calculated as 1.9 million (3.8-1.9)
USA
- 56.7 million have some sort of disability and 15.2 million, leaving 41.5 million with physical disabilities.
MEXICO
- 9.2 million has a disability, out of which 1.5 million has a cognitive (mental) disability. Hence, physical disability can be calculated as 7.7 million
BRAZIL
- In Brazil 2.8 million had a permanent mental disorder and the total disabled population is 45 million. Therefore, the physical/other disabled people will amount to around 42.2 million
UK
- 25% of the people in the UK who are disabled is related to mental health. The total number of disabled people in the UK is 13.3 million. Hence, around 3.3 million have a mental disability (13.3*25%) and 10 million have physical/other disabilities.
FRANCE
- It is estimated that 12 million people in France have a disability. It was also found that the prevalence of mental disorders in France was 18.2% among the general population. Since the total population in France is around 65.5 million, we can estimate that 2.18 million people have a mental disability (12 million *18.2%) leaving 9.8 million with physical and other disabilities (12 million - 2.18 million).
SPAIN
- 3.8 million people in Spain have a disability, out of which 19% accounts for psychological (mental) disability. Therefore, those with a mental disability in the country amounts to 72,000 leaving 3.1 million with physical and other disabilities.
GERMANY
- 10.2 million people in Germany have some sort of disability. From these people, 12% suffer from mental disabilities, which is 1.2 million (10.2*12%). Hence, it can be estimated that 9 million people have physical/other disabilities. (10.2-1.2)
ITALY
- There are 13 million people living with disabilities in Italy. The prevalence of mental disability among the population is 8.7%. With a population of 59.2 million, those with mental disability amounts to 5.1 million. Hence, the number of people with physical/other disabilities will be 7.9 million
CHINA
- There are 83 million people with disabilities in China. Out of this 5.5 million and 6.1 million have intellectual and mental disabilities respectively, totaling 11.6 million. Hence, those with physical/other disabilities will be 71.4 million.
RUSSIA
- There are 13 million people living with disabilities in Russia with 6 million mentally disabled. Therefore, those that have physical/other disabilities is around 7 million.
JAPAN
- There are 3.6 million physically disabled people in Japan. 0.5 million mentally retarded and 3.2 million are mentally disabled (excluding retardation), a total of 3.7 million mentally disabled and an overall total of 7.3 million disabled people in the country.
SOUTH KOREA
- In South Korea, 2.5 million people are living with some sort of disability and 50% of those people have a physical disability. Therefore, we can assume the remaining 1.25 million are people with mental disabilities (2.5*50%)
HONG KONG
- Out of the total 406,100 with disabilities in Hong Kong, those that are mentally handicapped, mentally ill and autistic amount to 87,000, 50,500, and 3,000 respectively. Hence, the total number of mentally disabled individuals can be calculated as 140,500 with 265,600 being physically disabled (406,100-140,500).
INDIA
- There are 26.8 million people with disabilities in India with those that are mentally retarded and mentally ill at 6% and 3% respectively. Therefore, it can be estimated that 2.4 million (26.8*9%) have mental disabilities and 24.4 million have physical/other disabilities.
SINGAPORE
- It was found that while there are an estimated 110,000 people with disabilities in Singapore today, official statistics on disability are not publically available in the country.
AUSTRALIA
- 4.3 million people in Australia have a disability out of which 3.9 million are mentally disabled. This means that the remaining 0.4 million are physically disabled.