The mandate for the Washington Group on Disability Measurement grew out of
the initial work begun at the United Nations International Seminar on
Measurement of Disability in New York on June 4-6, 2001.
The U.N. meeting
brought together a broad array of experts in disability measurement for
statistical reporting from developed and developing countries. The
participants at this meeting:
Reviewed the current status
of methods used in population-based data collection activities to measure
disability in national statistical systems with special attention to
questionnaire design.
Developed recommendations
and priorities to advance work on measurement of disability.
Contributed to building
a network of institutions and experts, including producers and users of
disability statistics to implement the developments in this field.
Participants
included representatives from national statistical offices and disability
measurement experts from academic settings. Representatives of the
disability community, users of disability data, survey methodologists and
international organizations - whose work is consistent with the objectives
of the meeting - also participated. The seminar brought together
approximately 100 country representatives.
The
following themes and recommendations were generated by the participants:
That the International
Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) be used as the
framework for measurement of disability in future work.
That principles and standard forms for global indicators to be used in
censuses be developed;
That principles for measuring the participation and environment components of
the ICF be developed since those are areas still in early
stages of development;
That emphasis be placed on
improving the comparability of disability data cross-nationally while
being sensitive to the cultural and resource differences encountered among
different nations.
That attention be focused on
issues associated with measuring disability among special populations such
as children, elderly, institutionalized populations, and others;
That methodological problems
including issues of self vs. proxy respondents, multipoint scale cut
points, negative terminology, and others depending on interest and time be
examined;
That additional work be done
on survey instruments for health surveys and survey supplements to be used
insurveys that do not focus
primarily on disability as time or interest allow; and
That
stakeholder and data users be included in these activities and that
exchange of information and establishment of guidelines for the use of
data and development of working relationships and networks among countries
to further cooperation on disability data topics be stressed.
As
a result of the seminar, the United Nations Statistical Division
authorized the development of a City Group, which will focus on two to
four topic
areas associated with measurement of disability. The National Center for
Health Statistics, the official health statistics agency of the United
States, was invited to host; first
meeting to
take place in Washington, DC. A
planning group was formed by the
United Nations Statistics Division to work on planning the first meeting.
City
Group Preliminary Objectives As the first
order of business at the first meeting, the Washington Group examined
the objectives established by the planning committee. At the
completion of the sessions and discussions, the group revisited the
objectives and refined the wording to better represent the conclusions
that had been reached. The following objectives were excepted
enthusiastically by the participants and were used to guide the
development of a work plan:
To
guide the development of a small set(s) of general disability measures,
suitable for use in censuses, sample based national surveys, or other
statistical formats, which will provide basic necessary information on
disability throughout the world.
To
Recommend one or more extended sets of survey items to measure disability
or principles for their design, to be used as components of population
surveys or as supplements to specialty surveys. These extended sets
of survey items will be related to the general measures.
Measures
identified in the above objectives will be culturally comparable to the
extent possible. The ICF model, a useful framework to assist in the
development of these measures, will be utilized in developing the
measures.
To
address the methodological issues associated with the measurement of
disability considered most pressing by the City Group participants.
Planning
Group for the First Meeting United States, Australia, Mexico, Uganda, and Luxembourg
(representing EUROSTAT).
Planning
Group for the Second Meeting Australia,
Belgium, Brazil, Canada, EUROSTAT, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Poland,
Uganda, and the United States.