Violence against people with disability: Differences by impairment - Fact Sheet No. 3

In Australia the extent and nature of violence against people with disability varies by impairment.

This fact sheet is third in a series on violence against people with disability in Australia and is based on current data for men and women aged 18-64 years. Data are sourced from the Australian Bureau of Statistics 2016 Personal Safety Survey where people have reported on their recent experience of violence in the last 12 months and since the age of 15, referred to here as Lifetime Experience.

The survey invites people to disclose impairments. We report on data using this term acknowledging that disability stems from the interaction between impairments (a limitation in function) and societal barriers created by attitudes, structures and environments.

Prevalence estimates are for individual impairment types including: physical; sensory (including sight and hearing) and speech; cognitive (including intellectual impairments, stroke, head injury and brain damage); and psychological impairments.

Many people report more than one impairment type and not all impairment types are represented in these data.

* Violence includes physical or sexual violence, emotional abuse, intimate partner violence, stalking and/or harassment.

The Violence and Disability Fact Sheets were produced by the team at the Centre of Research Excellence in Disability and Health (CRE-DH) and funded by the Melbourne Disability Institute.

Uploaded here are pdf and word (plain language) versions.

www.credh.org.au