Functional Limitations and Use of General Health Examination and Cancer Screening Among People with Disabilities Who Need Support from Others: Secondary Data Analysis of the 2022 Comprehensive Survey of Living Conditions in Japan

TL;DR

This study examines how functional limitations affect preventive healthcare access for people with disabilities in Japan, using data from a national survey.

Contribution

The study identifies mobility and self-care limitations as major barriers to preventive healthcare for people with disabilities.

Findings

People with disabilities made up 2.40–3.66% of those not using preventive healthcare services.

One-third of non-participants had two or more functional limitations, especially in mobility and self-care.

No significant differences were found in service uptake between 2016 and 2022 surveys.

Abstract

Functional limitations that compromise preventive healthcare service utilization by people with disabilities in Japan are unelucidated. Secondary data from the Comprehensive Survey of Living Conditions (CSLC) in 2022 on the functional limitations defined by the Washington Group Short Set may bridge the knowledge gap, with evaluation of the generalizability of the knowledge as CSLC2022 was conducted in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. We described the number and types of functional limitations among people with disabilities who did not participate in the general health examination and cancer screenings. For the generalizability evaluation, we analyzed preventive service uptake and its relevance to disability status and compared them with compatible data from the CSLC from 2016, conducted before the pandemic. Among the eligible data, the percentage of people with disabilities among the preventive healthcare service non-participants was 2.40–3.66% (n = 129–239); one-third had two or more types of functional limitations. Functional limitations in mobility and self-care (basic activities of daily living [BADL]) are common and dominant issues. No obvious difference was observed regarding the aforementioned statistics between CSLC2022 and CSLC2016. Reasonable accommodation for people with BADL related to uni- or multifunctional limitations may contribute to increased accessibility to preventive healthcare services.

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