NCD Topical Overviews - The Right to Health: Fundamental Concepts and The American Disability Experience

August 2, 2005

SCOPE AND PURPOSE:

This topic paper is part of a series of topic papers designed to provide brief background information on United States disability policy for use by the delegates in their deliberations on the United Nations Ad Hoc Committee on a Comprehensive and Integral International Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights and Dignity of Persons with Disabilities.

NCD offers the following examples of US policies and programs designed and implemented in an effort to ensure the right of people with disabilities to enjoy the highest attainable standard of health. It is not the intent to argue that the approaches adopted in the United States are the best or only way of ensuring access for people with disabilities, but instead to provide this information as a resource to those engaged in ultimately implementing the new convention.