Evidence and gap map of studies assessing the effectiveness of interventions for people with disabilities in low‐and middle‐income countries

BACKGROUND: There are approximately 1 billion people in the world with some form of disability. This corresponds to approximately 15% of the world's population (World Report on Disability, 2011). The majority of people with disabilities (80%) live in low‐ and middle‐income countries (LMICs), where disability has been shown to disproportionately affect the most disadvantaged sector of the population. Decision makers need to know what works, and what does not, to best invest limited resources aimed at improving the well‐being of people with disabilities in LMICs. Systematic reviews and impact evaluations help answer this question. Improving the availability of existing evidence will help stakeholders to draw on current knowledge and to understand where new research investments can guide decision‐making on appropriate use of resources. Evidence and gap maps (EGMs) contribute by showing what evidence there is, and supporting the prioritization of global evidence synthesis needs and primary data collection. OBJECTIVES: The aim of this EGM is to identify, map and describe existing evidence of effectiveness studies and highlight gaps in evidence base for people with disabilities in LMICs. The map helps identify priority evidence gaps for systematic reviews and impact evaluations. METHODS: The EGM included impact evaluation and systematic reviews assessing the effect of interventions for people with disabilities and their families/carers. These interventions were categorized across the five components of community‐based rehabilitation matrix; health, education, livelihood, social and empowerment. Included studies looked at outcomes such as, health, education, livelihoods, social inclusion and empowerment, and were published for LMICs from 2000 onwards until January 2018. The searches were conducted between February and March 2018. The EGM is presented as a matrix in which the rows are intervention categories (e.g., health) and subcategories (e.g., rehabilitation) and the column outcome domains (e.g., health) and subdomains (e.g., immunization). Each cell lists the studies for that intervention for those outcomes, with links to the available studies. Included studies were therefore mapped according to intervention and outcomes assessed and additional filters as region, population and study design were also coded. Critical appraisal of included systematic review was done using A Measurement Tool to Assess Systematic Reviews’ rating scale. We also quality‐rated the impact evaluation using a quality assessment tool based on various approaches to risk of bias assessment. RESULTS: The map includes 166 studies, of which 59 are systematic reviews and 107 impact evaluation. The included impact evaluation are predominantly quasiexperimental studies (47%). The numbers of studies published each year have increased steadily from the year 2000, with the largest number published in 2017.The studies are unevenly distributed across intervention areas. Health is the most heavily populated area of the map. A total of 118 studies of the 166 studies concern health interventions. Education is next most heavily populated with 40 studies in the education intervention/outcome sector. There are relatively few studies for livelihoods and social, and virtually none for empowerment. The most frequent outcome measures are health‐related, including mental health and cognitive development (n = 93), rehabilitation (n = 32), mortality and morbidity (n = 23) and health check‐up (n = 15). Very few studies measured access to assistive devices, nutrition and immunization. Over half (n = 49) the impact evaluation come from upper‐middle income countries. There are also geographic gaps, most notably for low income countries (n = 9) and lower‐middle income countries (n = 34). There is a fair amount of evidence from South Asia (n = 73) and Sub‐Saharan Africa (n = 51). There is a significant gap with respect to study quality, especially with respect to impact evaluation. There appears to be a gap between the framing of the research, which is mostly within the medical model and not using the social model of disability. CONCLUSION: Investing in interventions to improve well‐being of people with disabilities will be critical to achieving the 2030 agenda for sustainable development goals. The EGM summarized here provides a starting point for researchers, decision makers and programme managers to access the available research evidence on the effectiveness of interventions for people with disabilities in LMICs in order to guide policy and programme activity, and encourage a more strategic, policy‐oriented approach to setting the future research agenda.