Research Impact: The Global Matrix 4.0 brought forth evidence from 57 countries or jurisdictions from around the world in a harmonised methodology to make comparisons over time and between countries. The Global Matix typically did not examine differences between common indicators of disparities, such as gender, country level human development, age, residence area, and disabilities. This paper addressed this by going further into the data and reporting the differences of gender, age and disabilities by the human development index.
The data on disabilities used came from the forthcoming Para Report Cards and across all indicators, children and adolescents with disabilities had lower grades (i.e. fewer percent met the benchmarks for each indicator) in Overall PA, Organised sport and PA, Active Play, Active Transport, and Sedentary Behaviour. Future work should focus on providing more equitable opportunities for children and adolescents with disabilities. Data is lacking, as a quarter of the Global matrix countries or jurisdictions were able to provide data. Although this is an advancement from the last Global Matrix, where only 3 of the 49 countries had data on disabilities, there is much more to do to bring up the numbers to a level playing field to the data availability on other areas related to disparities.
Data sources in Ireland with disabilities predominantly included the HBSC study, CSPPA study, Growing Up in Ireland and the Young Persons Behavioural Survey, and it is with these examples that further work may be shared with other countries and jurisdictions on how to disaggregate their data by disability status.
Silva, D.A.S., Aubert, S., Ng, K., Morrison, S.A., Cagas, J.Y., Tesler, R., Tladi, D., Manyanga, T., González, S.A., Lee, E.Y. and Tremblay, M.S., 2022. Association between physical activity indicators and Human Development Index at a national level: information from Global Matrix 4.0 physical activity report cards for children and adolescents. Journal of Physical Activity and Health, 19(11), pp.737-744. https://doi.org/10.1123/jpah.2022-0321
PESS News & Information 