W3: Disability and Society

Question 1

What is the prevalence of diability in the UK?

Answer 1

UK overall - 22%
This is higher in the NE at 27%, particularly spikes in coastal towns and rural areas - may be due to lower health literacy, long term psychology with unemployment

Question 2

Define disability

Answer 2

The effect of a combination of a physical/mental impairement and social structures.
Whereby attitudinal and environmental barriers limit a persons full and effective participation in society.
Arise due to societal organisation

Question 3

What are some examples of inequality of outcomes amongst disabled populations compared to able bodies population?

Answer 3

Disabled:
- almost half the percentage have a degree as their highest qualification
- three times have no qualifications
- only 50% of disabled people are employed compared to 62% of able bodies
- have lower median hourly earnings
- more likley to report having bad or very bad health (including memeory, dexterity, breathing, fatigue, learning, mental health and vision)
- 60% of families with a disabled member are in material deprivation compared to 36% UK average.

Question 4

What are the different protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010?

Answer 4

Age
Disability
Gender Reassignment
Marriage and Civil Partnership
Pregnancy and maternity
Race
Religion and belief
Sex
Sexual orientation.

Question 5

How might the disablity of a patient effect the clinical reltionship?

Answer 5

Exclusion of disabled person from communication (presumed or enable)
Afraid of health care environments - due to removal of aids - more vulnerable
Stigma - all presenting complaints are said to be due to disability
Inaccesible health care environments - e.g poor public transport

Question 6

How might the disability of a clinician affect the clinical relationship?

Answer 6

Patient - discrimination or stigma - lack of trust in the doctor - request other or refuse treatment by this doctor
Doctor - may struggle to communicate effectivly with patients.

Question 7

What barriers may a person with a disability face when seeking healthcare?

Answer 7

Vulnerable - hospital stay removes disability aids, care needs to be neglected due to staff shortages or lack of awareness
Dependent on others - for transport or communication
Difficult to communicate when something is wrong in their body
Difficult to apply be mainstream methods - hard to access telephone at 8am morning for GP appointment, hard to speak over telephone to call 999.

Question 8

What does it mean to problematise disability?

Answer 8

To think of it as a problem that requires a solution.
We do this because….
We often take the body for granted - consider it as a background for what we do.
But this is not true - antrhopolgy and sociology - show that the body/care of it/function and appearance of it - are essential to human function.
Therefore a disability that affects the body is a problem.**

Question 9

How does society affect the body?

Answer 9

1. environmental, cultural, social and political influences on the body
2. The body is shaped by dominant discourses**

Question 10

How does society, identity and culture influence disability?

Answer 10

Disability is only thought of as a problem in certain context - this context is dependent on the culture, structure and identity of that person
For example: society of mainly death people that uses ASL as main language would not view hearing impairement as a disability, but a musician in a society that does not use ASL commonly would considering hearing loss a disability.

Question 11

What are some common societal assumptions about disability?

Answer 11

1. Is biological at its core
2. Is a medical issue
3. Always need help and support
4. any other problem that person has is due to their disability
5. Disabled person is a victim
6. Disability is central to self concept
7. Is fundamentally negative, therefore results in negative bias

Question 12

What are the key ideas of the medical model of disability?

Answer 12

Disability is being defined by the professionals who treat and study it. Therefore the discourse is very medical and focused on care and treatment.
Biological impairements determine level of disability
Any deviation from normal is undesirable and has negative consequences on function
Requires rehabilitation or adaptations to resume normal - focus on fixing what is wrong.
Sense of otherness
Aims to identify and meet the needs of disabled people so they can functional normally in society, implies that all biological deviations from the normal are impairments that need to be fixed.
Believes there is a solution in curative and rehabilitative medicine. (medicalisation of disability)
All disabilities are different - range of abnormalities.
Focused on the biological deficit rather than the effect on the individual.

Question 13

What are the critiques of the medical model of disability?

Answer 13

Dependent on goal for normal functioning - who defines normal?
Focus of functional efficiency - this varies in different societies, certain skills are more/less important to certain people
Is reductionist - only focuses on biological problems - not the social context
A biological abnormality that would be classed as a disability that needs fixing, may not be stigmatised in society - hence medical model is creating problems where there are none.

Question 14

What is the difference between an impairment and a disability?

Answer 14

Impairement - loss or abnormality of psychological, physiological or anatomical strucutre of function

Disability - the restriction of ability to do an activity to the normal extent due to an impairement.

Question 15

What is meant by disability as a social construct?

Answer 15

Disability is an idea that is created and accepted in a society due to their beleifs and actions
Therefore, the belifes, expectations and economic imperatives of a society influcne is an impairement is considered a disabilit.
Different societies have different demands of normal functioning and ability.

Question 16

What are the key ideas of the social model of disability?

Answer 16

The way in which society is organised (environmentally and attitudes) is disabling rather than an individual’s condition or medical diagnosis.
Societal barriers to participation create disability - a type of social oppression
Creates a political dimension - changing political goals would alter the level of disability.
Conversely, an impairment may be valued if it fills a function in society.
This breaks the causative link between impairment and disability as the cause is the incompatibility with society - often associated with discrimination.
Focuses on how society restricts opportunities creating disability.
All disability = shared social stigma.

Question 17

How do the medical and social model of disabilty change the way people think of disability?

Answer 17

Medical - disability is less than, abnormal or defective. Negative view, discussion focused on problems

Social - disability is different but not necessarily less than. Neutral or positive view. Discussion emphasises personal experience and individual data.

Question 18

What are the goals of the medical model of disability?

Answer 18

To give advice, prescriptions to the patient
Passive graphic** - non interactive, responsibility of disabled person and medical field to find solution, inertly disabled dont need to do or not do something to be classified as disabled.

Question 19

What are the goals of the social model of disability?

Answer 19

To empower individuals to assume active role and self actualisation (fulfil own goals and wishes).
Active graphic - interactive outlook - the interaction of the person with society that cause disability

Question 20

What are the critiques of the social model of disability?

Answer 20

Over blames social factors for negative experiences of disabled people
Suggests that changing society would eliminate disability - unrealistic and naive view
By separating impairement and disability suggests there is a difference between body and mind - supprts western idea of the body as a machine
Undermines individuals experience of pain or impairment - imply they are not important as can be fixed by societal adjustments.

Question 21

What is the view of disability when the medical and social model are integrated?

Answer 21

Creates an effective an holistic view of disability
Appreciates how biology/physical barriers create disability. Health conditions create impairment, and limit activity and participation.
Also, appreciate how this biology interacts with social factors, this contextualises the disability - personal aspect of disability.
Therefore disability in the result of interacting social and biological processes.

Question 22

How does eugenics link to disability?

Answer 22

Control over human reproduction to ensure the inheritance of desirable characteristics.
This creates an undesirable view on disability, suggests they are unfit therefore genetically inferior.
This is a potential issue in modern medicine by the use of genetics to reduce children born with disabilities.

Question 23

What are the different types of discrimination against disabled people?

Answer 23

Ableism
Social/economic - education and emplyment
Physical
Cultural
Behavioural

Question 24

What is ableism?
Give an example

Answer 24

The discrimination and prejudice against people with disabilities and favours people who are able bodied.
For example, designing a building with no ramps, not providing an interpretor for important news braodcasts.

Question 25

What is mean by social and economic discrimination against disabled people?

Answer 25

Inability to participate in education and employment
Social-differential treatment based on actual or perceived characteristics
Educational segregation - special schooling needs, limit educational achievement and create division between other children, concern over the use of the word special

Question 26

What is meant by physical discrimination against disabled people?

Answer 26

Concerns access to build environment (man made structures)
Such as housing and transport.

Question 27

What is cultural discrmination against disabled people?

Answer 27

Using language and images to create negative images around disability.
Mass media creates criminal, pitiful or dehmunising views of disability which then influence the opinion of the masses.

Question 28

What is behavioural discrimination against disabled people?

Answer 28

Hate crime, abuse and violence
Lack of friendship and intimacy
(something that someone else does to another individual)

Question 29

What are the common images of disabled people in mass media?

Answer 29

Tragic victim - used in charity, implies pity or sense of less than
Sinister villian - suggests something inheritently sinister (e.g Roald Dahl witches with limb abnormalities)
Super crib - heroes for doing everyday tasks or special achievements, creates ideas that are always worse off than you.

Question 30

What is the charity model of disability?

Answer 30

When disability is seen as a personal tragedy.
A disabled person is talked about in language such as handicapped or abnormal, suggests a lower or poorers ability
Creates the idea that disabled people are to be pitied and require able bodies help. Therefore implies a disabled life is a tradgedy
This means disabled people are often considered inspirations for achieving normal goals - implies that we have lower standards or expectations for disabled people.

Question 31

According to Paul Hunt what are the ten stereotypes that the media uses to portray disabled people?

Answer 31

As pitable or pathetic
An object or curiosity or violence
Sinister or evil
The super cripple
As atmosphere - to create a certain theme or impression
Laughable
His/her own worst enemy
As a burden
As asexual
Being unable to particpiate in daily life.