Block 4 Soc Pop Flashcards
What are the key features and criticisms of the medical model of disability?
Features
- Disability : intrinsic to the individual
- Restrictions: attributed to physical or cognitive impairments
- Interventions/services: changing or curing the disabled person
- Medical/health care profession’s role: treatment and central
Criticisms
1. Individualises the issue of disability
2. Negative /disempowered image
3. ‘Personal tragedy’
4. Medicine defines and controls disabled people e.g.
Zachary/Lorber conflict
What are the key features of the social model of disability?
- Disability is extrinsic to individual - social, attitudinal and physical barriers prevent disabled people from participating in society to the same extent as other people
- Problem primarily caused by the way society is organised
- Public issue: needs socio-political responses
- Distinction between impairment and disability
• Impairment = body, mental or intellectual limitation or condition
• Disability = loss or limitation of opportunities to take part in
society on equal basis
What are some advantages and disadvantages of the social model of disability?
Advantages
- Disability is not seen as an inevitable consequence of living with impairment
- Emphasises the need to remove physical, attitudinal and social barriers to full social participation
- Calls for social and political change rather individual adaptation
Disadvantages
1. Can fail to acknowledge the significance of impairments for individuals
Why did the International Classification of Functioning replace WHO’s International Classification of Impairments, Disabilities and Handicaps?
ICF aims to address some of the difficulties with the previous classification system:
o Addresses difference of emphasis implicit in the medical and social models of disability
o Establishes a common language for describing health and health-related states to improve communication between different users
o Provides an international coding system for classifying coding and functioning.
What is the interactional/integrated model of disability and how does this underpin the ICF and UNCRPD?
• ‘Interactional’ approach adopted by:
– WHO’s International Classification of Functioning (ICF)
– United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with
Disabilities (UNCRPD)
• Role of polices and services is to enable disabled people to lead
ordinary lives and to participate in society to the same extent as non- disabled people
Why is a human rights approach of disability considered appropriate?
Human rights approach (UNCRPD)
1. Establishes that disabled people are not ‘other’ i.e. have the same
rights and as others
2. Established a universal standard or benchmark which can be applied
3. If a disabled person’s experiences fall short of this universal standard,
it is understood as a human rights violation
What are the tools to promote human rights of disabled people?
Tools to promote rights and equality
1. International: UN Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities
(UNCRPD) and other human rights conventions E.g.
• Equality before the law without discrimination (article 5)
• Right to life, liberty and security of the person (articles 10 & 14)
• Equal recognition before the law and legal capacity (article 12)
• Freedom from torture (article 15)
• Freedom from exploitation, violence and abuse (article 16)
- National: e.g. UK Equalities Act (2010)
• equal treatment in access to employment, private and public
services, regardless of the protected characteristics of age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, race, religion or belief, sex, and sexual orientation
• Definition of disability - A person is disabled if s/he has a physical or mental impairment and the impairment has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on his/her ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities
• Health and social care services covered by the laws under the Equality Act 2010 including NHS providers, day centres/nursing homes, NHS commissioners
Why do disabled people live in more disadvantaged circumstances than non-disabled people?
- Employment
– Significantly less likely to be in employment (46.3% compared to
76.4% of non-disabled people of working age)
– More likely to experience discrimination at work (19% compared
to 15% of non-disabled people) - More likely to experience poverty than other people:
– Households with at least one disabled member:19% compared to 15% - Education: 3 times as likely to have no qualifications than non-disabled people
- Over a quarter of disabled people say they do not frequently have choice and control over their daily lives
- Accessing goods and services: a third report difficulties
- More likely to experience poor health outcomes eg people with learning disabilities (see Phase 2)
- Accessing health services can be challenging
What language should you use in relation to disabled people?
- Avoid terms like ‘the disabled’ and describing people by their impairment/condition
- Use positive not negative language
a. ‘Experiences’ rather than ‘suffers from’
b. ‘Wheelchair user’ rather than ‘confined to a wheelchair’ - Avoid common phrases that have negative associations with impairments eg ‘blind drunk’, ‘deaf to pleas’, ‘mad as a hatter’
- Use words that respect disabled people as active individuals
what are the health disadvantages of not being in work?
- poorer physical health - More likely to die sooner
- poorer mental health
- more medical care
- poorer social integration
- loss of self-confidence
- less monetary resources
- effect on next generation - child deaths from injury correlate with
low employment status and worklessness of parents
What are the costs of sickness absence?
- State: £15 billion – sickness benefits, healthcare costs, loss of tax
- Employers: £9 billion – sick pay and other costs
- Employees: £4 billion – lose earnings
- Overall costs to economy: £100 billion
What is the changing demography of the workplace?
- State pension age adults is decreasing
- Working-age adults increasing
- Hence, all people working is up by 1.4 million between 2005/06 to
2015/16
What is the definition of occupational health?
ILO/WHO definition:
- Promotion and maintenance of the highest degree of physical,
mental and social well-being of workers in all occupations;
- Prevention of work-related ill-health;
- Placing and maintenance of the worker in an occupational
environment adapted to his physiological and psychological
capabilities;
- “the adaptation of work to man and of each man to his job”
Define hazard, risk and risk assessment
Hazard
something that might cause harm
Risk
the likelihood of that harm actually occurring
Risk assessment 1. Identify hazard 2. Assess the risks - to health 3. Manage/control the risks e.g. attending a rock concert; potential hazard - noise, one concert only – risk of harm from noise is low
What are the main categories of work-related ill-health
Previously
- Accidents
- Poisoning
- Muscoskeletal
Current
- Mental health – depression, anxiety
- Muscoskeletal – skin, respiratory, infection
