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Challenges and Solutions in Provision of Health Services to People With Disabilities During Mass Gatherings[1]

Dehghani A, Behmenshpour F, Anami S, Masoumi G, Eskandari Z · 2026 · Public Health Chall

Summary

Qualitative study (Iran, May-Aug 2023) of the barriers people with disabilities face in obtaining healthcare during mass gatherings, built from 26 semi-structured interviews with people with disabilities plus policymakers, managers, and disaster-management specialists, analyzed by conventional content analysis (Graneheim & Lundman) to thematic saturation. Findings sort into two challenge groups: (1) for managers and policymakers — service provision, logistics, coordination, and planning; and (2) for people with disabilities themselves — care-support services, provision of infrastructure, and management of health services. The authors advance two policy strategies for equitable access: ongoing, meaningful participation of people with disabilities in the design, planning, and implementation of event health programs, and multi-sectoral collaboration to integrate disability needs into national and local mass-gathering management.

So what

Direct evidence for the dependent-populations page's thesis, extending it from the pediatric/elderly/pregnant axis to disability: the person who is more fragile, less self-advocating, and poorly served by a plan built for the median attendee. Its contribution is a structural diagnosis — the barriers are managerial (planning, logistics, coordination) as much as clinical — and a concrete governance lever (co-design with disabled people, plus multi-sectoral integration) that a medical director or SAG can actually act on. It also gives the Purple Guide Accessibility chapter a peer-reviewed companion: the guide states the accommodations; this paper shows what fails when they are bolted on rather than co-designed. Qualitative and single-country, so cite for the framework, not for rates.

Key findings

  • Qualitative, Iran 2023, 26 interviews (people with disabilities + policymakers/managers/disaster specialists), content analysis to saturation
  • Two barrier groups: managerial (service provision, logistics, coordination, planning) and lived (care support, infrastructure, health-service management)
  • Barriers are structural/managerial as much as clinical — a planning failure, not just a resourcing one
  • Two policy levers: co-design with disabled people; multi-sectoral integration into event health programs
  • Extends dependent-populations scope to disability; peer-reviewed companion to Purple Guide Accessibility chapter

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