A/HRC/40/32
insurance, public-private partnership for service provision, and reallocation and
redistribution of existing resources. 42 The Sustainable Development Goals include an
explicit commitment to achieving universal health coverage (target 3.8). When designing
and implementing universal health coverage, States should ensure that it covers
rehabilitation and assistive products (A/73/161, para. 55).
60.
It is good practice to allocate designated funding for rehabilitation services within
the State budget that are sufficient to ensure equitable access to services of the same quality
for all users, including for persons with disabilities living in poverty.43 Policymakers should
consider and measure the broader positive economic impact of investing in rehabilitation,
such as increased participation in labour markets and education, longer independent living
and fewer or shorter hospital admissions.
E.
Awareness-raising
61.
In accordance with article 8 of the Convention, States must adopt immediate,
effective and appropriate measures to raise awareness regarding persons with disabilities
and their health and rehabilitation needs. Awareness-raising campaigns must adopt a human
rights-based approach, promoting persons with disabilities as rights holders and not as
patients or objects of charity and care. In this regard, public fundraising campaigns in
support of rehabilitation services or public delivery events of assistive devices and
technologies can reinforce a charity approach and a pathologizing view of disability
(A/73/161, para. 69). General awareness-raising campaigns should aim to inform end users
of the available services and their rights, and more personalized campaigns should aim to
change the attitudes of rehabilitation professionals and families towards a human rightsbased approach to disability.
F.
Research and data
62.
Reliable high-quality research and data are necessary for the development and
implementation of effective evidence-based rehabilitation policies and programmes. Under
article 31 of the Convention and Sustainable Development Goal 17, States parties are called
upon to make available high-quality, timely and reliable data, disaggregated by gender, age,
disability and other characteristics forming the basis for discrimination, in order to identify
gaps and improve policy formulation. Such data remains scarce. 44 States should increase
rehabilitation-related research, especially in priority areas identified by WHO, such as the
types and impacts of different service delivery models, governance structures and financial
allocation; cost-benefit analysis of rehabilitation; and facilitators and barriers to accessing
rehabilitation. 45 States should also increase research on the development of affordable
assistive products (Convention, art. 4 (1) (g)). Wherever possible, research should be led by
researchers with disabilities, be participatory and include the views of persons with
disabilities and their representative organizations in all phases. States should collect
disaggregated data on people’s rehabilitation requirements and the types and quality of
rehabilitation services provided. Expenditure data on rehabilitation services should be
disaggregated from other health-care services. 46 States should ensure the accessible
publication and systematic dissemination of research results and data so that clinical
42
43
44
45
46
Ibid., p. 122.
WHO, Rehabilitation in Health Systems, p. 22. The Committee on the Rights of Persons with
Disabilities has expressed concern that the income criteria for eligibility for rehabilitation services put
an undue financial burden on persons with disabilities, and recommended that such criteria be
eliminated (CRPD/C/POL/CO/1, paras. 45–46).
WHO, Rehabilitation in Health Systems, p. 33.
Ibid.
WHO, World Report on Disability, p. 123.
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