Health equity for persons with disabilities, a global health priority unpacked during the Global Disability Summit 2025

Global Disability Summit 2025: a milestone of hope and action

The third Global Disability Summit, held in Berlin on 2 – 3 April 2025, provided a landmark moment for disability inclusion and rights. The Summit successfully built on the legacy set by previous Summits in 2018 and 2022. A record-breaking 4,500 participants attended this third event, including representatives of Organizations of Persons with Disabilities from over 110 countries, representatives of more than 60 governments as well as many more people from international organizations, civil society, academia and the private sector. The Summit brought disability justice into sharp focus, amassing over 800 commitments to strengthen disability inclusion and rights.

Set amidst increased pressure on human rights and global development, the Summit underscored the importance attached worldwide to disability inclusion and rights. United Nations Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed acknowledged this at the start of the Summit, emphasising that “inclusion is not optional, rights are not negotiable [and] accessibility is essential”. Amina Mohammed went on to state: “Promises made should be promises kept. Let’s keep fighting for an inclusive, just [and] sustainable future for all that our world needs and should be.”

Health equity for persons with disabilities

An estimated 1.3 billion people – or 1 in 6 persons – experience significant disability globally. This figure is rising due to population ageing and escalating prevalence of noncommunicable and communicable diseases.

Health equity and access to quality, safe and affordable healthcare are critical concerns for persons with disabilities of all ages. Persons with disabilities need the same general healthcare services as everyone else, but persistent barriers and discrimination mean that persons with disabilities experience, on average, much poorer health and functioning than the general population. Persons with disabilities are twice as likely to develop health conditions such as diabetes or stroke and they are missing 10 to 20 years of life-expectancy[1].

These inequities result from unjust and avoidable factors that disproportionately affect persons with disabilities, including discrimination and exclusion. Health information is often inaccessible, barriers in the built environment still exist, and negative and/or ableist attitudes persist among healthcare professionals. As a result, persons with disabilities are three times more likely to be denied healthcare and four times more likely to be treated badly in healthcare facilities[2].

Intersecting factors such as sex, age, gender identity, poverty or migrant status further intensify health inequities experienced by persons with disabilities.

Darryl Barrett from the World Health Organization emphasised at the Summit that “poor health outcomes for persons with disabilities are unfair, unjust and completely avoidable [and] if we want this to change, we can change it. If we want to stop people with disabilities from dying earlier or [being] at greater risk of developing a range of health conditions, we can do it - We have the tools. We have the evidence.” Achieving change require collaboration between all global health actors.

[1] Global report on health equity for persons with disabilities. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2022

[2] WHO global disability action plan 2014-2021. Better health for all people with disability.

Making health equity for persons with disabilities a priority

The Global Disability Summit 2025 (including through a Thematic Pre-Summit on Health Equity for persons with Disabilities) gave greater prominence to health than previous Summits; health was the focus of a main session in the Summit as well as numerous side events and receptions. New evidence was also presented regarding the inequitable health outcomes of many persons with disabilities as well as their invisibility in health data. Women Enabled International, for example, presented evidence regarding adverse health outcomes for women with disabilities across the life course. Down Syndrome International and Humanity & Inclusion also shared new evidence on the experiences of health care of persons with intellectual disabilities and their families, spotlighting worrying practices that go against human rights (such as forced sterilization).

The Summit also provided a renewed opportunity for organisations to build on the health commitments made at the Global Disability Summit 2022, and propose new, measurable and ambitious commitments to strengthen health equity for persons with disabilities. 

Prior to the Summit, the International Disability and Development Consortium led Call to Action on making health equity a priority at the GDS was endorsed by over twenty organizations.

At the Summit, discussions started on a new Lancet Commission on disability and health that will explore how global health can better serve persons with disabilities. The WHO Director-General, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, also announced a forthcoming WHO global initiative on health equity for persons with disabilities. This initiative will establish more effective collaboration between global health and disability actors to promote health system strengthening and address the unjust and avoidable factors that drive health inequities.

Following the Summit, the focus must now be on action. At the Thematic Pre-Summit on Health Equity in February 2025, Emi Michael from the Global Fund emphasised the importance of the “translation of […] commitments into action to ensure that disability inclusion is embedded in every aspect of global health.”

Creating change can be as simple as ear-marking a fraction of the millions of dollars invested in major programmes like primary health care strengthening, eradicating tuberculosis and HIV, or improving maternal health care. Now is the time for governments and other health stakeholders to step up their focus on health equity for persons with disabilities to make disability inclusion a priority within Universal Health Coverage, in all health system strengthening efforts, and across the continuum of health care.