Estimate of the Numbers of Persons With Disabilities (PWDs) in Uganda

By missing 2 of the core questions identified by the Washington group, some PWDs were missed from the  National Population and Housing Census 2014. In this blog I will try to ascertain how many PWDs were missed?

The Uganda Demographic and Health Survey 2011 is said to be representative of the Ugandan population. In all 10,086 households were surveyed with 9,247 women age 15-49 and 2,573 men age 15-54.

Estimating the number of PWDs is important because:

Persons with disabilities are considered vulnerable in Uganda. They are disadvantaged in work places and in other public places. The government of Uganda has developed a National Disability Policy to promote effective service delivery to persons with disabilities. Recently, the Expanding Social Protection Programme (ESP) was developed primarily to incorporate a national social protection system, including direct income support for the poorest and most vulnerable people, a population that includes those with disabilities. In the 2011 UDHS, information was collected on each household member age 5 and older about whether he or she had difficulties with seeing, hearing, communicating, walking or climbing stairs, remembering or concentrating, or performing self-care.

How many PWDs were missed by the National Population and Housing Census 2014?

Summarizing the findings of the report the survey notes that

• 19 percent of persons age 5 and over have some form of disability. 
• The prevalence of disability increases with age, from 12 percent among children age 5-9 to 67 percent among those age 60 and above. 
• The prevalence of disability is about 12 to 13 percent among persons age 5-29, and starts to rise after age 30. 
• The prevalence increases significantly, from 19 percent among persons age 30-39, to 31 percent at age 40-49, and to 49 percent at age 50-59. 
• Difficulties in seeing and walking or climbing stairs are the most common types of disabilities reported during the survey.

How do the estimates compare with the figures from the the Ugandan National Population and Housing Census 2014 – Main Report? This chart shows the percentage of the total population that is disabled for each of the 6 core areas identified by the Washington Group.

Functional Area	Census % 2 years and over	Estimated % 5 years and over
Difficulty seeing	7.4	9.4
Difficulty hearing	6.8	5.4
Difficulty walking or climbing steps	5.2	7.2
Difficulty remembering or concentrating	6.2	6.2
Difficulty with self care	Not recorded	2.3
Difficulty with communicating	Not recorded	1.5
Total %	12.5	19.2

The total percentage of PWDs 5 years and over counted in the National Population and Housing Census 2014 – Main Report was 14%. It is easy to see that approximately 5% of PWDs were not counted by the 2014 Census by comparison with the estimate.

That is around 1.8 million PWDs were missed from the 2014 Census. So there are a total of approximately 7.4 million PWDs living with prejudice and stigma in Uganda.