Promoting disability inclusion in sexual and reproductive health research and programming: Experiences from W-DARE

Research background: Throughout the W-DARE project, women with disabilities and Disabled People’s Organisations (DPOs) were involved across research activities in a range of roles; including as decision-makers, co-researchers, disability experts, program facilitators and participants. There are a range of established benefits to actively engaging people with disabilities as researchers and research partners, and participatory research approaches that support and enable the participation of women with disabilities, are widely viewed as effective and appropriate ways of involving women with disabilities in research. However, actively engaging women with disabilities as decision-makers and members of the research team is a relatively unique approach in many places. This could be due to negative assumptions about the capacity of women with disabilities to conduct research, as well as a lack of knowledge and awareness amongst researchers and policy-makers about why they should engage women with disabilities in research, and how they can partner with women with disabilities and disabled people’s organisations (DPOs) to design and implement research projects. Research contribution: These guidelines aim to promote the active inclusion of women with disabilities in SRH research and programming in the Philippines and other similar settings. Research significance: These guidelines will have relevance for researchers, policymakers, service providers and practitioners who would like to engage women and men with disabilities in efforts to strengthen disability inclusive SRH research, services, policy and programming. The usefulness of these guidelines is not restricted to those conducting research about SRH. Much of the content of these guidelines will be of use to those wishing to involve women with disabilities in research, on any topic. These guidelines can be used in conjunction with other available guidelines on disability inclusion in research and programming, a list of which can be found at the back of these guidelines.