Health News : Research says UK families with disabled children more likely to live in poverty Research says UK families with disabled children more likely to live in poverty ================================================================================ admin on 22/04/2010 18:21:00 Dr Clare Blackburn worked with a team of researchers from the University of Warwick to study data from the 2004/5 national Family Resources Survey (FRS). She said, “The FRS has data on 16,012 children aged 0-18 years. We found that 7.3% of these were reported as being disabled, almost two percentage points (250,000 children) more than published estimates for 2003-4. The highest prevalence of childhood disability was found among those with the poorest income”. The results of this study clearly show that disabled children in the UK today continue to experience income inequality and material and social disadvantage. Speaking about the reasons for this, Dr Blackburn from the University of Warwick said: “Households with disabled children have caring responsibilities that makes them far less able to seek employment and far less able to have any career progression for those who are able to also to take up job. With this reduced ability to earn an income comes the significant additional financial costs associated with caring for a disabled child. Given the relationship between positive health, social and education outcomes and poverty and material deprivation, improving the circumstances of disabled children is likely to be crucial”. The journal article can be found here: http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2431-10-21.pdf Note for editors: Original press release prepared and issued by Graeme Baldwin Science Press Officer BioMed Central Graeme.Baldwin@biomedcentral.com For further press information please contact: Dr Clare Blackburn, Associate Professor School of Health and Social Studies University of Warwick Tel: 024 7652 4132 c.m.blackburn@warwick.ac.uk or Peter Dunn, Head of Communications, University of Warwick Tel: 024 76 523708 Mobile 07767 655860 p.j.dunn@warwick.ac.uk