Duration: 12 months (2 January 2026 to 31 December 2026)
Abstract: The project “PRISMA – People with Disabilities in Portugal: Prevalence, Profiles and Sociological Portraits” aims to carry out a prevalence study and a sociodemographic characterisation of the adult population with disability and impairment in Portugal.
The project mobilises extensive and intensive strategies. The extensive strategies involve, in a first stage, the analysis of secondary data collected from administrative sources (from DGEEC, for higher education, and from GEP, for employment) and from official sources (Eurostat), covering the time span 2015–2025. These data will make it possible to outline, from a macro perspective, the evolution of key indicators for the population with disability and impairment, and to identify the most recent trends in schooling rates, activity rates, unemployment/employment rates, and the at-risk-of-poverty rate of people with disabilities, in comparison with the population without disabilities.
In a second stage, the most recent microdata from two nationwide surveys will be analysed – ICOR and the Labour Force Survey. The statistical analysis of these data will make it possible to estimate the prevalence of the population with disability and impairment in Portugal and to obtain a general sociodemographic characterisation of its current distribution by: sex, age, type and level of functional impairment, educational attainment, employment status, and living conditions (among other variables), whenever appropriate in comparison with the population without disabilities. The microdata will also be explored with a view to identifying statistical profiles within the population with disabilities.
To complement the previously conducted statistical analyses, 4–5 biographical interviews will be carried out for each statistical profile identified, in order to capture in greater depth the “individual complexities” and to understand how individuals are shaped by the external social world, which they simultaneously contribute to shaping. In this way, it will be possible to characterise, in a more fine-grained manner, the barriers, stigma and types of discrimination that affect their daily lives, but also to reveal their agency and their subjective perceptions of these challenges and of the ways to address them. This information is critical for the design of public policies informed by the human rights paradigm, which is based on the principle of the active participation of people with disabilities, as expressed in the slogan “nothing about us without us”.
Principal Investigator
- Paula Campos Pinto, Associate Professor, Coordinator of ODDH, Institute of Social and Political Sciences, University of Lisbon
Research team
- Teresa Janela Pinto – Assistant Professor, Deputy Coordinator of ODDH, Institute of Social and Political Sciences, University of Lisbon
- Patricia Neca – Invited Assistant Professor, Deputy Coordinator of ODDH, Institute of Social and Political Sciences, University of Lisbon
- Ana Paula Ferreira – Associate Professor, Institute of Social and Political Sciences, University of Lisbon
- Pedro Goulart – Associate Professor, Institute of Social and Political Sciences, University of Lisbon
- Fernando Fontes – Assistant Researcher, Centre for Social Studies, University of Coimbra
Funding
PAT2030-FEDER-03055000