ArticleBMJ public health2026
Avoidable mortality for people with disabilities: a systematic review and meta-analysis.
Article in BMJ public health, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Objectives: To estimate the proportion and relative inequalities in avoidable mortality for people with disabilities globally. Design: Systematic review and meta-analysis of population-based studies. Data sources: A systematic search of Embase, MEDLINE, Global Health and PsycINFO was conducted for articles on disability and mortality published from January 2000 to July 2026. Eligibility criteria: We included studies that reported on avoidable, treatable and preventable mortality and disability. Eligible studies were quantitative studies that provided a numeric proportion of avoidable mortality and/or relative measures compared with people without disabilities. Results: Our search identified 1250 deduplicated records that were assessed for eligibility and 12 articles representing 15 unique cohorts were included in the study. All the data were from high-income countries and examined avoidable mortality for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Most were low risk of bias (75%) and the rest were medium (25%), as measured by the JBI Quality Appraisal Tool for Cohort Studies. Avoidable mortality was reported overall and for treatable and preventable sub-indicators. Results had high heterogeneity, but found people with disabilities had 45% (95% CI 45% to 46%) of deaths deemed avoidable, 22% (95% CI 21% to 22%) treatable and 21% (95% CI 20% to 21%) preventable. This represented significant relative inequalities for 3.60 (95% CI 3.53 to 3.68) times higher avoidable mortality; 5.82 (95% CI 5.64 to 6.01) times higher treatable mortality and 2.58 (95% CI 2.50 to 2.66) times higher preventable mortality compared with people without disabilities. Conclusions: A substantial proportion of early mortality for people with disabilities is likely to be avoidable. Some of this may be due to underlying impairments, but these inequalities are unlikely due to impairment alone. Rather, they reflect significant health inequalities that contribute to differences in life expectancy compared with people without disabilities, though all data are from high-income countries. Health systems must adapt to improve accessibility and quality of care for this population. PROSPERO registration number: CRD420251072430.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.