The OHS community recognises the importance of being informed and educated about diversity, equality and inclusion.
I therefore wanted to draw your attention to the fact that, from the evening of 18th November until Friday 18th December 2020, it is UK Disability History Month. This is an annual event and creates an opportunity to focus on disabled people’s struggle for equality and human rights. I encourage you to reflect on and explore these important matters.
The theme for this, its 11th, year is Access: How far have we come? How far have we to go?
Themes for previous years have included:
Statistics: [1]
- There are 14.1 million disabled people in the UK.
- 8% of children are disabled
- 19% of working age adults are disabled
- 44% of pension age adults are disabled
Attitudes:
- 1 in 3 disabled people feel there’s a lot of disability prejudice.
- 1 in 3 people see disabled people as being less productive than non-disabled people.
- In 2000, 37% of disabled people and 34% of non-disabled people felt that there was a lot of prejudice around disability. The gap trebled by 2017, with 32% of disabled people and 22% of non-disabled people feeling there is a lot of prejudice against disabled people.
[1] From Scope – the disability equality charity in England and Wales