Disability in North Africa: Prevalence, pattern, and recommendations: Prevalence, pattern, and recommendations

Disability can be described as a condition encapsulating impairments, activity limitation and participation restr-iction. This study aims to do a comparative analysis on the prevalence, socio-demographic distribution and distribution patterns of disability among the people living in the member nations of the northern region of Africa. Methods: This study was an original research conducted on the population of people living with disability in North Africa. Secondary data obtained from the most recent national housing and population surveys released by the statistics bureau of the member countries of the northern region of Africa were utilized for this study. Results: The findings from this study reveals that Libya has the highest prevalence rate of disabled (5.8%); Sudan has the highest population of disabled (1,854,985); Algeria has the highest disabled male population (1,300,689); and Sudan has the highest disabled children population (387,692). The pattern of disability follows a decreasing trend from physical to speech disability. Conclusions: Disability is a major problem of global health importance in North Africa. There is an imminent need for the governments of the North Africa nations to look into this health problem in their region.