Launch of Key Findings of Viet Nam’s first large-scale National Survey on People with Disabilities (2016)

Disability affects a significant portion of the Viet Nam's population. The survey found that over 7 per cent of the population aged 2 years and older, – around 6.2 million, have a disability but an additional 13 per cent - nearly 12 million, live in a household with a person with a disability. These percentages are expected to rise with the aging of the population.

Findings from the survey show that households having members with disabilities tend to be poorer than the national average, and children with disabilities attend school less and adults with disabilities are less employed than their peers without disabilities. While they are well covered by health insurance, and poverty does not appear to be a barrier to accessing health clinics, few persons with disabilities (2.3 per cent) use rehabilitation services when sick or injured. Gaps also exist in living standards and the social participation of people with disabilities.

The survey also indicated that children with disabilities have less access to education than their peers without disabilities. The gap is wider at higher levels of education. Less than one third of children with disabilities go to upper secondary schools, compared to nearly two thirds of children without disabilities. Although there have been some positive results in mainstreaming children with disabilities with the other children, only 2 per cent of primary schools and lower secondary schools have facilities that meet the needs of children with disabilities and only 1 in 7 teachers received training on disabilities.

The Viet Nam Disability Survey is one of the first national disability surveys in the world that incorporates both the Washington Group (WG) Extended Set of disability questions for adults and the UNICEF/Washington Group Child Functioning Module (CFM) for the identification of persons with disabilities via a survey. The survey was conducted with support from related ministries, provincial authorities, international organizations including UNICEF, the Washington Group on Disability Statistics, and the Australian Government.

Click here to access the survey's findings