SP 1: Research, Evidence and Impact
Led by GDI Hub at UCL with the support of the IIPP, ALL Institute and Leonard Cheshire Disability. Framing the economics of AT around a mission-led approach; developing a return on investment framework and researching what works to overcome stigma.
Credits: Angus Stewart
Humanitarian
In 2020, a new strand of humanitarian research was incorporated into this sub-programme intended to:
- Improve understanding of the need for AT in humanitarian settings
- Compile evidence of current provision and practice across a variety of humanitarian contexts
- Provide case study examples of ‘what works’
- Provide recommendations for action by key stakeholders, particularly global humanitarian coordination bodies and actors
- Disseminate findings through working papers and conference attendance
Latest
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What is Assistive Tech, who is it for, and what does it enable?
Global Disability Innovation HubFeb. 19, 2023When we use the term Assistive Technology (AT), we usually think about products like wheelchairs and walking sticks, hearing aids and eye-glasses, prosthetics and digital or mobile devices. However, the World Health Organisation (WHO) suggests a broad definition of assistive technology which emphasises services (diagnostics, fitting, ‘on-demand’ assistance), systems (infrastructure, processes), and products (eyeglasses, hearing aids, mobility aids).
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Towards Proactive Information Retrieval in Noisy Text with Wikipedia Concepts
UCL, Tabish Ahmed, Sahan BulathwelaSept. 18, 2022This work explores how exploiting the context of a query using Wikipedia concepts can improve proactive information retrieval on noisy text. We formulate two models that use entity linking to associate Wikipedia topics with the relevance model. Our experiments around a podcast segment retrieval task demonstrate that there is a clear signal of relevance in Wikipedia concepts while a ranking model can improve precision by incorporating them.
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Global Report on Assistive Technology
UNICEF, World Health OrganizationMay 16, 2022The WHO-UNICEF Global Report on Assistive Technology (AT) was launched in May 2022. The first of it's kind - the report marked a important milestone for the profile, understanding, impact, prioritisation and reach of AT. Built on much of the work from our UK aid funded AT2030 - which submitted over 150 insight papers and co-sponsoring the report alongside ATscale.
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Meeting AT needs in humanitarian crises: The current state of provision
Dr Maria Kett, Golnaz Whittaker, Gavin Adam Wood, Giulia Oggero, Kirstin LangeDec. 24, 2021This paper discusses the evidence available in the literature for the scale and quality of AT provision interventions in crises, and what is known about the challenges and facilitators of provision. We conducted a search of the academic literature and retained literature that reported on any form of AT provision following crisis, where international humanitarian response was in place, published in English between January 2010 and June 2020. We conclude by providing recommendations for urgent actions that the AT and humanitarian community must take to fill this critical gap in the provision of essential products and services for a potentially marginalized and excluded group.
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A Preliminary Study to Understand How Mainstream Accessibility and Digital Assistive Technologies Reaches People in Lower- and Middle-Income Countries
Catherine Holloway, Katherine Perry, Felipe Ramos Barajas, Dr Ben Oldfrey, Priya Morjaria, Tigmanshu Bhatnagar, George TorrensSept. 30, 2021In this study, eight experts were interviewed who are established in the domain of training people with disabilities, advising on policy and facilitating access and Digital AT, and shared their diverse experiences. The insights we assimilate from these conversations should help developers of accessibility and Digital AT solutions to more effectively deliver products and services to those in need.
People
Catherine Holloway
