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Introduction
Around 1 in 6 (18%) people in Australia—or about 4.4 million—have disability. This is also known as ‘disability prevalence’. Another 22% of people in Australia have a long-term health condition but no disability, and the remaining 60% have no disability or long-term health condition (ABS 2019a).
What is disability prevalence?
Disability prevalence is the number or proportion of the population living with disability at a given time.
Prevalence rates can be age-specific (for a particular age group) or age-standardised (controlling for age, so that populations with different age profiles can be compared).
In this report we provide age-specific data on people with disability. This approach was selected to better allow comparison of people with and without disability.
What affects prevalence?
Factors including changes to population survival rates (such as increased or decreased life expectancy), as well as survival rates for specific health conditions, can affect disability prevalence. It can also be affected by the age at which a health condition first occurs, and remission and rehabilitation rates.
The rate estimated by the national Australian Bureau of Statistics’ (ABS) Survey of Disability, Ageing and Carers (SDAC) can vary, even when the actual prevalence might not, because of changes in social attitudes, government policy and survey methods.
Why is understanding prevalence important?
Knowing how many people are affected by disability, and their characteristics, informs planning for providing services and building inclusive communities through practices and policies enabling people with disability to participate fully in society.
Nearly 1 in 3 (32%) people with disability—about 1.4 million or 5.7% of the Australian population—have severe or profound disability. This means sometimes or always needing help with daily self-care, mobility or communication activities (ABS 2019a).
Survey of Disability, Ageing and Carers
Data in this section are largely sourced from the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ (ABS) 2018 Survey of Disability, Ageing and Carers (SDAC). The SDAC is the most detailed and comprehensive source of disability prevalence in Australia.
The SDAC considers that a person has disability if they have at least 1 of a list of limitations, restrictions or impairments, which has lasted, or is likely to last, for at least 6 months and restricts everyday activities.
The limitations are grouped into 10 activities associated with daily living—self-care, mobility, communication, cognitive or emotional tasks, health care, reading or writing tasks, transport, household chores, property maintenance, and meal preparation. The SDAC also identifies 2 other life areas in which people may experience restriction or difficulty as a result of disability—schooling and employment.
The severity of disability is defined by if a person needs help, has difficulty, or uses aids or equipment with 3 core activities—self-care, mobility, and communication—and is grouped for mild, moderate, severe, and profound limitation. People who ‘always’ or ‘sometimes’ need help with 1 or more core activities are referred to in this section as ‘people with severe or profound disability’.
While the number of people with disability has risen (from about 4.0 million in 2009), the prevalence rate has decreased over this period (from 18.5% in 2009 to 17.7% in 2018, or from an age-standardised rate of 17.7% in 2009 to 16.1% in 2018) (ABS 2019a). This indicates that the increase in the number of people with disability has been slower than the increase in the total population.
Sex and age
The prevalence of disability generally increases with age (Figure PREVALENCE.1). This means the longer people live, the more likely they are to experience some form of disability:
- 7.6% of children aged 0–14 years have disability
- 9.3% of people aged 15–24 years have disability
- 13% of people aged 15–64 years have disability
- 50% of people aged 65 years and over have disability (ABS 2019b).