Law and Disorders : illness/disability and the experience of everyday problems involving law
Coumarelos, Christine
Law and Disorders : illness/disability and the experience of everyday problems involving law - Justice Issues, paper 17 - NSW Law and Justice foundation of New South Wales 2013 - 24 pages
KEYWORDS: disability, mental illness, legal access, long-term illness, socioeconomic disadvantage, low income, housing stress, homelessness, eviction
Legal needs surveys, including the Legal Australia-Wide (LAW) Survey, have demonstrated a strong relationship between the experience of legal problems and long-term illness/disability. Furthermore, some overseas surveys have shown that the relationship is also evident for mental illness more specifically. However, research to date has generally not explored different types of physical impairment separately. This paper draws on the LAW Survey data to examine the relationship between legal problem experience and different types of mental and physical illness/disability. The findings confirm the existence of strong links between the experience of legal problems and long-term illness/disability. They show that the link strengthens as severity of illness/disability increases and that the associations are particularly strong for mental impairment. However, associations for the different types of physical impairment examined were also generally evident and sometimes strong, with the picture being highly context specific. The findings provide overwhelming support for the potential utility of integrated legal, health and broader human services.
Disability
Law and Disorders : illness/disability and the experience of everyday problems involving law - Justice Issues, paper 17 - NSW Law and Justice foundation of New South Wales 2013 - 24 pages
KEYWORDS: disability, mental illness, legal access, long-term illness, socioeconomic disadvantage, low income, housing stress, homelessness, eviction
Legal needs surveys, including the Legal Australia-Wide (LAW) Survey, have demonstrated a strong relationship between the experience of legal problems and long-term illness/disability. Furthermore, some overseas surveys have shown that the relationship is also evident for mental illness more specifically. However, research to date has generally not explored different types of physical impairment separately. This paper draws on the LAW Survey data to examine the relationship between legal problem experience and different types of mental and physical illness/disability. The findings confirm the existence of strong links between the experience of legal problems and long-term illness/disability. They show that the link strengthens as severity of illness/disability increases and that the associations are particularly strong for mental impairment. However, associations for the different types of physical impairment examined were also generally evident and sometimes strong, with the picture being highly context specific. The findings provide overwhelming support for the potential utility of integrated legal, health and broader human services.
Disability