Making data and statistics more inclusive in developing countries
Young Asian woman with smiling face sitting in the wheelchair. plo/Shutterstock.com
Measuring disability through household surveys and population censuses is challenging and there is not a gold standard approach. In censuses or surveys, disability is often captured through questions on functional difficulties (e.g. seeing, hearing), activities of daily living (e.g. bending, bathing), broad activity limitation (e.g. inability to work due to a health condition) or a general question (“do you have a disability?”).
In 2017, the United Nations Statistical Commission adopted revised guidelines for the collection of disability data in national censuses (United Nations 2017). The Commission recommends that the following four functional domains be considered essential in determining disability status in a way that can be reasonably measured using a census and that would be appropriate for international comparison: (a) Walking; (b) Seeing; (c) Hearing; (d) Cognition. It also notes that two other domains, self-care and communication, have been identified for inclusion, and if possible, upper-body functioning is another domain that should be considered for inclusion. There have been efforts to generate internationally comparable and tested questions, notably by the Washington Group (Loeb 2015; 2016).