Question

Explain any four causes of Disability.

Answer 1

1. Poverty and Malnutrition: Poverty is one of the biggest causes of disability. Poor people are most vulnerable to disability because they are forced to live and work in unsafe environments with poor sanitation, crowded living conditions and with little access to education, clean water or enough good food. This makes diseases such as tuberculosis and polio and the severe disabilities they cause much more common because disease get passed from one person to another more easily. Many babies who are born in poor families may be born with disabilities or may die in infancy. This may be because the mother did not get enough to eat when she was pregnant or may be because she did not get enough to eat when she was growing up.
2. Wars: Explosions during wars cause people to become deaf, blind and lose their limbs, as well as cause other injuries. Their mental health is also badly affected by the violence. The destruction of homes, schools, health centres and means of livelihood that results from conflicts and wars leads to increased disability, poverty and disease.
3. Nuclear Accidents: Many people have suffered after being exposed to massive amounts of radiation. This happened after accident in nuclear power plants at Three Mile Island in the USA in 1979 and at Chernobyl in the Ukraine in 1986. And it also happened when the USA dropped nuclear bombs on Japan in 1945. These incidents caused widespread destruction and death from exposure to radiation. The people who are survived in these accidents and bombing attacks have suffered mainly from cancers, either tumours in various parts of the body, especially in the thyroid gland or leukaemia, all of which brings an early death. In communities where these nuclear incidents happened, there has also been an increase in the number of children born with learning difficulties such as Down syndrome.
4. Poor Access to Health Care: Many a times, vaccines are not available or people who are poor or live far from cities cannot afford them or there are not medicines/vaccines enough for everyone.
5. Illness: Some illness can cause physical or learning problems when baby is born. Illnesses that can cause birth defects include German measles, which is a common cause of deafness in newborn babies. There is a vaccine that gives protection against rubella, but a woman who gets an immunization of the rubella vaccine should not get pregnant for one month afterward.
6. Medicines and Injections: When used correctly, certain injected medicines, like some vaccinations are important to protect health and prevent disability. However, there is a worldwide use of unnecessary injections. Each year the unnecessary injections sicken, kill or disable millions of persons, especially children. Giving injections with an unclean needle or syringe is a common cause of infection and can pass the germs that cause serious diseases such as HIV/AIDS or hepatitis. Unclean injections are also a common cause of infection that can lead to paralysis or spinal cord injury or death.
7. Dangerous Working Conditions: Individual who work long hours without enough rest are likely to have accidents. Individual who works in factories, mines or agricultural plantations can be exposed to dangerous machinery, tools or chemicals. Accidents, overwork and exposure to chemicals can all cause disability.
8. Accidents: Many individuals get disabling injuries at home by burns from cooking fires, falls, road accidents and breathing or drinking toxic chemicals. Workplace accidents, especially in less regulated sectors such as construction, agriculture, mining and smaller businesses are a common source of disability.
9. Poison and Pesticides: Poisons such as lead found in paints, pesticides such as rat poison and other chemicals can cause disabilities in people. Smoking or chewing tobacco, breathing smoke and drinking alcohol can also harm a person.
10. Inherited Disability: Some disabilities are known to be inherited, such as spinal muscular atrophy and muscular dystrophy. Women who already have one or more children with inherited disability are more likely to give birth to another child with the same problem.