Measuring disability and monitoring the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities: the work of the Washington Group on Disability Statistics

Abstract

The Washington Group on Disability Statistics is a voluntary working group made up of representatives of over 100 National Statistical Offices and international, non-governmental and disability organizations that was organized under the aegis of the United Nations Statistical Division. The purpose of the Washington Group is to deal with the challenge of disability definition and measurement in a way that is culturally neutral and reasonably standardized among the UN member states. The work, which began in 2001, took on added importance with the passage and ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities since the Convention includes a provision for monitoring whether those with and without disabilities have equal opportunities to participate in society and this will require the identification of persons with disabilities in each nation. The International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) developed by the World Health Organization provided a framework for conceptualizing disability. Operationalizing an ICF-based approach to disability has required the development of new measurement tools for use in both censuses and surveys. To date, a short set of six disability-related questions suitable for use in national censuses has been developed and adopted by the Washington Group and incorporated by the United Nations in their Principles and Recommendations for Population and Housing Censuses. A series of extended sets of questions is currently under development and some of the sets have been tested in several countries. The assistance of many National and International organizations has allowed for cognitive and field testing of the disability questionnaires in multiple languages and locations. This paper will describe the work of the Washington Group and explicate the applicability of its approach and the questions developed for monitoring the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

Measurement, Data and Country Context

“…It is similar to Fig. 2 This measure of functional difficulties is the one developed by the United Nations' Washington City Group on Disability Statistics 4 (the Washington Group thereafter) (Madans et al 2011;Altman 2016). The Washington Group has recommended a short list of six questions to be included in household surveys or censuses.…”

Using the ICF in work-related physiotherapy: a contribution to data collection about functioning

“…As the ICF has a single standard, it should be constantly calibrated under the perspective of the existing evaluation tools. 16,17 The preparation of short and specific lists that facilitate the user's applying the ICF has obeyed a consensus process among specialists. 18 In this way, the Delphi method has been used, which is an important stage to obtain these lists, 19,20 and utilized by the project named Core Sets, a pioneer in this area.…”

Between Equality and Discrimination: Disabled Persons in Romania

“…Moreover, even when the intention is to measure the same concept, the questions used may diff er in ways that negatively infl uence comparability (Madans, Loeb and Altman, 2011).…”