AUTHOR=Olusanya Bolajoko O. , Kancherla Vijaya , Shaheen Amira , Ogbo Felix A. , Davis Adrian C. 

TITLE=Global and regional prevalence of disabilities among children and adolescents: Analysis of findings from global health databases

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Public Health

VOLUME=Volume 10 - 2022

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/public-health/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2022.977453

DOI=10.3389/fpubh.2022.977453

ISSN=2296-2565

ABSTRACT=Objective
The United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) require the monitoring of estimates of children with disabilities to inform global policies and intervention programs. We set out to compare the prevalence estimates of disabilities among children and adolescents under-20 years reported by the world’s leading organizations for global health statistics.
Methods
We purposively searched the disability reports or databases of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Bank and the Global Burden of Diseases (GBD) Study. We analyzed the latest disability data reported by these organizations since 2015. We examined the methodologies adopted in generating the reported prevalence estimates and evaluated the degree of agreement among the data sources using Welch’s test of statistical difference, and the two one-sided t-test (TOST) for statistical equivalence.
Results
Only UNICEF and GBD provided the most comprehensive prevalence estimates of disabilities. Globally, UNICEF estimated that 28.9million (4.3%) children aged 0-4 years, 207.4 million (12.5%) children aged 5-17 years and 236.4 million (10.1%) children aged 0-17 years have moderate-to-severe disabilities based on household surveys of child functional status. Using the UNICEF prevalence estimate, approximately 266 million children aged 0-19 years are expected to have moderate-to-severe disabilities. In contrast, GBD 2019 estimated that 49.8 million (7.5%) children aged under-5 years, 241.5 million (12.6%) children aged 5-19 years and 291.3 million (11.3%) children younger than 20 years have mild-to-severe disabilities. In both databases, Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia accounted for more than half of children with disabilities. The overall mean prevalence estimates for children under-5 years were statistically different and not statistically equivalent based on ±3 percentage-point margin while the prevalence estimates for children 5-19 years and <20 years were not statistically different and were statistically equivalent. 
Conclusion
Prevalence estimates of disabilities among children and adolescents generated using either functional approach or statistical modelling appear to be comparable and complementary. Improved alignment of the age-groups, thresholds of disability and the estimation process across databases, particularly among children under-5 years should be considered. Children and adolescents with disabilities will be well served by a variety of complementary data sources in global health.