Living with a label
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The Disability Discrimination Act (DDA), which made it on to the statute book in 1995, was a key victory for campaigners. It began a process of securing legal protection from discrimination and raised hopes of transforming society’s attitudes toward disabled people. So why does a national survey published 11 years later conclude that the public is confused about what constitutes a disability and that serious prejudice persists? The latest British Social Attitudes Survey, published today, concludes that disability is still largely perceived in the narrow and outdated sense of visible physical disability, such as wheelchair use, even though the DDA has a much broader definition that incorporates conditions such as long-term debilitating illness. It also reveals worrying levels of prejudice against some groups defined as disabled under the act - in particular, people with mental illness. According to the study, 52% of those surveyed did not think of someone with schizophrenia as being disabled and only 44% regarded an older person with a hearing aid as having a disability, yet 31% regarded a person with a broken leg who needed to use crutches as disabled. “The general public tends not to draw the definition as wide as the DDA does,” the report’s authors conclude. “Mental health conditions are often not seen as disabilities. Nor are long-standing illnesses, such as cancer or HIV/Aids, included by most people.” More : guardian.co.uk |