A Meta-Synthesis of Disability Research in Western Africa

Blasko, Alyssa M.; Morin, Kristi L.; Bauer, Kathleen; Johnson, Karl A.; Enriquez, Grace B.; Hunsicker, Lindsey E.; Tasik, Emily J.; Renz, Theodore E.

doi:10.1177/00224669221090231

Cited by 5 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…Sierra Leone, in particular, has a paucity of disability research. According to a recent large-scale meta-synthesis of qualitative disability research in West Africa, a mere 11 studies had been conducted in Sierra Leone compared to 212 studies conducted in other West African countries (Blasko et al, in review). What little information is known about disabilities in Sierra Leone often comes from national census data, which are self-report measures, and focuses on quantitative measures of disability, such as frequency, employment rate, and educational attainment (Kabia & Tarawally, 2017).…”

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confidence: 99%

Perspectives on Disabilities in Sierra Leone

et al. 2021

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Most disability research originates from high-income countries, masking important cultural variability in how disability is conceptualized. Through 199 interviews with people living in Sierra Leone, we investigated the following research questions: (1) what are the experiences of community members with people with disabilities?; (2) what employment options or other resources are available for people with disabilities?; and (3) how do community members perceive people with disabilities? We used a mixed-method approach to data analysis by quantitizing the qualitative responses to further examine whether participants’ responses differed by urbanicity, age, or level of education. The results of this study provide insight into how disability is understood in a low-income country and reveal important directions for future research.

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confidence: 99%

Perspectives on Disabilities in Sierra Leone

et al. 2021

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“…Westernised disability systems and philosophies of disability are likely to be overrepresented in the findings of this review. Blasko et al (2022) identified in their meta‐analysis that research in disability disproportionately concerns high‐income countries, even though most people living with disability globally live in middle‐ and low‐income countries. Jagoe et al (2021) highlight that there are specific barriers to engaging people with disabilities in research in low‐income countries, which prevents the success of global efforts to reduce poverty.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The ontology and epistemology shaping our understanding of inclusion: A critical review of the research literature on disability and inclusion

Spivakovsky

Zirnsak

Ainsworth

et al. 2023

Policy Practice Intel Disabi

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People with disability continue to face barriers to substantive and meaningful inclusion in accommodation and community settings. The aim of this systematic review was to examine the characteristics of the literature on ‘inclusion’, ‘integration’, ‘exclusion’, and ‘segregation’ for people with disability in accommodation and community settings. This literature is important because it provides the evidence base that informs policy and practice. We identified 457 articles that primarily related to the experiences of people with intellectual disability and psycho‐social disability. We found: (1) the volume of publications relating to the ‘inclusion’, ‘integration’, ‘exclusion’ and ‘segregation’ of people with disability in accommodation and community living settings has increased each year since 2006; (2) high‐income western countries were overrepresented in research outputs; (3) most research has been undertaken in the health sciences; (4) only 30% of literature directly engaged with people with disability; (5) less than 50% of the publications we reviewed (223 out of 457 manuscripts) identified inclusion, integration, exclusion and segregation as their primary focus; (6) ‘inclusion’, ‘integration’, ‘exclusion’ and ‘segregation’ were predominantly used in the context of specific populations—psycho‐social disability and intellectual disability; (7) there is great variation in the attention paid to the experiences of different communities of people with disability; and (8) the notable absence of current scholarly literature on the experiences and outcomes of people with disability living at home with parents and/or siblings. Each of these findings have important implications for the research agenda, policy, and practice.

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“…In the absence of research on the prevalence of ID in Nigeria (see [6]), it is not possible, other than through extrapolations from other countries, to estimate the overall number of people with ID [4] (p. 88), [6]. In 2018, the World Health Organization estimated that 29 million people in Nigeria were living with a disability [7].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The literature has consistently acknowledged the scarcity of information and empirical research about people with ID in developing countries such as Nigeria, e.g., [2,4,24]. For example, a recent meta-synthesis [6] of disability research in Western Africa revealed that, of the 223 disability articles from West Africa reviewed, only 24 were papers related to people with ID in the whole of West Africa; however, there was no information from the meta-synthesis on how many of these 24 ID studies were specifically derived from Nigeria [6]. To our knowledge, there has been no published scoping review on ID research in Nigeria.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Scoping Review of Empirical Literature on People with Intellectual Disability in Nigeria

Sango

Deveau

2022

Disabilities

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Intellectual disability (ID) is an emerging field of research in Nigeria. This review seeks to identify what has been published in order to describe the evidence and to identify the major gaps in knowledge and practice. A systematic search of five databases and an African disability journal yielded 15 papers that reported on empirical studies related to people with ID in Nigeria. Fifteen studies across the databases and journal searched met the inclusion criteria. The participants included adults and children with ID and their families. Twelve of the papers employed quantitative methods, two were qualitative and one was a mixed methods study. There is a paucity of empirical research on people with ID in Nigeria, thus emphasising the need for more primary research about people with ID living in Nigeria. Nigeria is estimated to have the largest population of people with disabilities in Africa; however, this review found limited empirical work regarding their lives, prevalence and care. This limited evidence hinders the understanding of the challenges people with an intellectual disability face and potentially inhibit the creation of policy-oriented solutions to their plights in a globalised world.

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A Meta-Synthesis of Disability Research in Western Africa

Cited by 5 publications

References 27 publications

Perspectives on Disabilities in Sierra Leone

Perspectives on Disabilities in Sierra Leone

The ontology and epistemology shaping our understanding of inclusion: A critical review of the research literature on disability and inclusion

A Scoping Review of Empirical Literature on People with Intellectual Disability in Nigeria

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