COVID-19 disproportionately impacts access to basic needs among households with disabled members.
Samantha Streuli, Richard S Garfein, Tommi Gaines and 1 others
PMID 36764843WHAT IT FOUND
Households with a disabled member reported significantly greater difficulty accessing food, housing, medicine, transportation, healthcare, and income during the pandemic.
The basic needs index score was 4.0 for these households compared to 1.6 for others, a difference that persisted after adjusting for income and education.
Key findings
01Households with a disabled member had a mean basic needs index score of 4.0 compared to 1.6 for those without, indicating significantly greater difficulty across all six domains.
02Having a disabled household member was associated with 2.21 additional points on the basic needs index even after adjusting for household income, education, gender, ethnicity, and size.
03Earning a stable income was the most frequently reported challenge among households with a disabled member, with 70.6% reporting minor or major difficulties.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they found
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What it does not show
Cross-sectional design cannot determine causality. Sample limited to parents/guardians with children in socially vulnerable San Diego schools, restricting generalizability. Disability measured by single self-report item without detail on type or severity. Small sample size for some ethnic groups led to exclusion from analysis. Did not capture households affected by long COVID.
Declared interests
The authors report no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not interpret the association between disability and basic needs challenges as evidence that disability causes these difficulties. The cross-sectional design cannot separate cause from effect, and the sample was limited to low-income households with children, so findings may not apply to other populations.