Disabled UK children more likely to live in poverty

Disabled children in the UK are more likely to likely to live with low-income, deprivation, debt and poor housing. Researchers writing in the open access journal BMC Pediatrics found that disabled children, particularly those from black/minority ethnic/mixed parentage groups and lone-parent households experience higher levels of poverty and personal and social disadvantage than other children.

Clare Blackburn worked with a team of researchers from the University of Warwick, UK, to study data from the 2004/5 national Family Resources Survey (FRS). She said, "The FRS has data on 16,012 children aged 0-18 years. We found that 7.3% of these were reported as being disabled, almost two percentage points (250,000 children) more than published estimates for 2003-4. The highest prevalence of childhood disability was found among those with the poorest income".

It is clear from the results of this study that disabled children in the UK today continue to experience income inequality and material and social disadvantage. Speaking about the reasons for this, Blackburn said, "Households with disabled children have a greater dependence on social security benefits and are faced with the additional financial costs associated with caring for a disabled child. Given the relationship between positive health, social and education outcomes and poverty and material deprivation, improving the circumstances of disabled children is likely to be crucial".

1. Prevalence of childhood disability and the characteristics and circumstances of disabled children in the UK: secondary analysis of the Family Resouces Survey
Clare M Blackburn, Nick J Spencer and Janet M Read
BMC Pediatrics (in press)

During embargo, article available here: http://www.biomedcentral.com/imedia/1520890836297986_article.pdf?random=402352

After the embargo, article available at journal website: http://www.biomedcentral.com/bmcpediatr/

Please name the journal in any story you write. If you are writing for the web, please link to the article. All articles are available free of charge, according to BioMed Central's open access policy.

Article citation and URL available on request at press@biomedcentral.com on the day of publication

2. BMC Pediatrics is an open access journal publishing original peer-reviewed research articles in all aspects of health care in neonates, children and adolescents, as well as related molecular genetics, pathophysiology, and epidemiology. BMC Pediatrics (ISSN 1471-2431) is indexed/tracked/covered by PubMed, MEDLINE, CAS, EMBASE, Scopus, Thomson Reuters (ISI) and Google Scholar.

3. BioMed Central (http://www.biomedcentral.com/) is an STM (Science, Technology and Medicine) publisher which has pioneered the open access publishing model. All peer-reviewed research articles published by BioMed Central are made immediately and freely accessible online, and are licensed to allow redistribution and reuse. BioMed Central is part of Springer Science+Business Media, a leading global publisher in the STM sector.