South Korea leads Asia Pacific in disability health data management

The insufficiency of patient health data poses a challenge in addressing the needs of those with disabilities.

South Korea stands out as a regional and global leader in terms of health data management for people with disabilities due to its research publications and health system, according to McKinsey Health Institute.

Amn Nasir, Engagement Manager at McKinsey, said that the majority of the world’s research on cause-specific deaths for people with disabilities come from South Korea.

She added that South Korea also has a national disability registration system, which is linked to their electronic medical records and their national health insurance data, which provides a very rich database for analysis and policymaking.

“If I were a policymaker in their health ministry, I could use this data to identify the differences in, for example, cervical cancer care for women with and without disabilities, and to be able to pinpoint exactly where in that care journey a woman with disabilities could face inequities in care, for example, lower screening, and then to devise policies that help address these specific gaps,” Nasir explained.

She highlighted new technologies like AI to provide opportunities in analyzing new and previous data, saying that there is also a potential for other countries to digitize their general health records.

“Unfortunately, we don't see a lot of countries currently having disability markers in this health data, but we see a lot of potential for them to add these markers to be able to compare the health needs of people with different types of disabilities and also to compare the outcomes of people with and without disabilities,” Nasir said.

Hannah Kuper, Lead on Evidence and Research of the Missing Billion Initiative, said having enough data is necessary to provide better solutions and bridge the gap between health data and patient needs, emphasizing that based on recent data, people with disabilities are dying 15 years earlier on average.

“Disability is really broad and includes people with physical impairments, hearing, vision, learning disabilities, and psychosocial impairments. And this might seem like a really diverse group, but there are also commonalities of experience. And one of them, unfortunately, is reduced life expectancy,” Kuper said.

For Kuper, the crucial issue lies in the gaps of data available for individual countries, saying that they do not have evidence that people with disabilities are falling behind in terms of morality and worse health outcomes.

“If there's this failure of data and evidence, that can be a failure to act, but on the other hand, if that evidence is available, then it can provide a stimulus for action,” she said.