Michael Palmer

• PhD (Australian National University)
• Senior Lecturer at The University of Western Australia

The 2023 Disability Data Report zooms in and produces disability disaggregated indicators at the regional and district levels in 15 countries in the global south. This offers new opportunities for monitoring the situation of persons with disabilities locally.

The Washington Group short set (WG-SS) questions are increasingly integrated into national household surveys, censuses, and international survey programs. They enable the monitoring of disability rights and the production of internationally comparable statistics. Disability statistics on prevalence and inequalities can be estimated using different...

The health shocks literature typically does not take into account the temporal patterns of loss since the time of the shock. This limits understanding of the long‐run impact of health shocks and the capacity of individuals to cope over time. This study estimates the dynamic effects of a noncommunicable disease shock on the economic well‐being of wo...

Around the world, the issue of disability inclusion is gaining increasing prominence. To promote disability-inclusion in programmes, a growing number of countries are considering the creation of a disability identification card. However, the administration of a disability ID card in low and middle-income countries differs from those in high-income...

This article investigates the impact of exposure to United States air force bombing during 1965–75 on the disability status of individuals in Vietnam in 2009. Using a combination of national census and US military data and an instrumental variable strategy which exploits the distance to the former North–South border as a quasi-experiment, the artic...

Little is known about the extra costs faced by households with disabled members in low resource settings and the impact of these costs on living standards. In this paper we estimate the direct cost associated with disability for households in Cambodia. Using the Standard of Living approach, the direct cost associated with having a member with disab...

The rise of non-communicable diseases has placed enormous stress on health systems leading to calls for improved prevention. This article examines the association of risk factors and non-communicable disease diagnosis in China using longitudinal data which enables us to control for important simultaneity bias. Using three waves of the China Family...

We conduct the first systematic review of the impact of health insurance on children and their households in low- and middle-income countries where nine-tenths of the world's child population reside. We find only 13 studies for seven countries published between 2000 and 2014 which assess the insurance impacts for children, controlling for self-sele...

Background: There has been a growing interest in disability and poverty on the international research and policy stages. Poverty assessments for persons with disabilities may be affected by the experience of extra costs associated with a disability. Objective: This article provides a systematized review of the global literature on the direct cos...

We conduct the first systematic review of the impact of health insurance on children and their households in low- and middleincome countries where nine-tenths of the world’s child population reside. We find only 13 studies for seven countries published between 2000 and 2014 which assess the insurance impacts for children, controlling for self-selec...

Supporting info item

Around the world, attention to the issue of disability inclusion is gaining increasing prominence. One strategy to promote disability-inclusion in benefit participation programs that a growing number of countries are considering is the creation of a disability identification (ID) card. There exists a long history of various types of disability ID c...

Through a series of focus group discussions conducted in northern and central Vietnam, this study gives voice to the lived economic experience of families with disabilities and how they manage the economic challenges associated with disability. The dynamic of low and unstable income combined with ongoing health care and other disability-related cos...

This paper investigates the economic impact of health shocks on working-age adults in Vietnam during 2004-2008, using a fixed effects specification. Health shocks cover disability and morbidity and are measured by 'days unable to carry out regular activity', 'days in bed due to illness/injury', and 'hospitalization'. Overall, Vietnamese households...

Disability is shown to be both a cause and a consequence of poverty. However, relatively little research has investigated the economic cost of living with a disability. This study reports the results of a study on the extra cost of living with disability in Vietnam in 2011. The study was carried out in eight cities/provinces in Vietnam, including H...

This paper evaluates the national social protection system for persons with disabilities in the Philippines with respect to the PWD ID card - a social assistance program which entitles persons to discounts on basic goods and services. The paper recommends that the objective of the program is redefined to allow for the future expansion of PWD ID car...

Accessing health services at an early age is important to future health and life outcomes. Yet, little is currently known on the role of health insurance in facilitating access to care for children. Exploiting a regression discontinuity design made possible through a policy to provide health insurance to pre-school aged children in Vietnam, this pa...

Exploiting a window of opportunity in Vietnam, this paper examines the impact of social health insurance on target population groups. Significant inequalities in the coverage of service utilization and financial protection are found across groups. Persons with disabilities, and retirees to a lesser extent, experienced relatively high rates of servi...

This article reviews the relationship between social protection and disability in theory and practice. Persons with disabilities and their families may be considered among the most worthy recipients of social protection due to their vulnerability to chronic poverty and social exclusion. A review of cash transfer programmes for persons with disabili...

This paper examines the relationship between disability and poverty at a health-demographic surveillance site in Viet Nam using alternative measures of disability severity. Analysis of the site population (n = 65 400) is combined with interviews of 27 households containing members with disabilities. Results show that disability severity is positive...

This article reviews the theoretical basis and methods for disability measurement. Different methods arise from different theoretical perspectives. Recent efforts to develop a general international disability measure consistent with the social model of disability aim to produce an internationally comparable measure of disability with which to asses...

There is a need for nationally representative information on the affordability of health care by disability status to assist in the design of equitable health systems in developing countries. Using the Viet Nam National Health Survey (2001-2002), this paper analyses health care utilization, cost burden and coping strategies for people with disabili...

The relationship of disability to poverty is of increasing interest to policy makers as persons with disabilities are being mainstreamed into national poverty reduction programs. However, previous reviews on disability and poverty have not systematically addressed the concept of poverty. This article examines the conceptual and empirical links of t...

Just as America and its allies have become embroiled in what some have called another Vietnam, questions to do with the injustice of that earlier conflict have begun to resurface in international forums. In January of 2004, some 29 years since the official end of the Vietnam War the first action on behalf of Vietnamese victims of the principal US m...

This paper seeks to provide a socio-economic impact assessment for Vietnamese victims of the principal US military herbicide, Agent Orange, used during the Vietnam War in the period 1961-71. The study is based on a field survey of 30 affected and 30 unaffected households in Quang Tri province. With this assessment, the paper attempts to address the...

This paper assesses compensation programmes for victims of the principal U.S. Military herbicide, Agent Orange, used during the Vietnam War period 1961 to 1971. Whilst positive steps forward in the formal recognition and compensation of victims, both the Vietnamese and to a lesser extent, the American programme, are found to fall short in meeting t...

This article seeks to assess the available sources of compensation for Vietnamese victims of the principal US military herbicide, Agent Orange, used during the Vietnam War period, 1961–71. The impetus for the examination of compensation for the victims of Agent Orange is the apparent inability of international law to accommodate individual victims...