Washington Group on Disability Statistics

The Washington Group on Disability Statistics was formed as a result of the United Nations International Seminar on Measurement of Disability that took place in New York in June 2001. An outcome of that meeting was the recognition that statistical and methodological work was needed at an international level in order to facilitate the comparison of data on disability cross-nationally. Consequently, the United Nations Statistical Commission authorized the formation of a City Group to address some of the issues identified in the International Seminar and invited the National Center for Health Statistics, the official health statistics agency of the United States, to host the first meeting of the group. The City Group format is one that has been used by the United Nations (U.N.) in numerous other occasions to address various problems in survey measurement and methodology, such as the Rio Group, which focuses on poverty statistics. The City Group is an informal, temporary organizational format that allows representatives from national statistical agencies to come together to address selected problems in statistical methods. A City Group usually develops a series of three to four working meetings and is named after the location of the first meeting.

The Washington Group, with funding from the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) and support from the Leonard Cheshire Disability and Inclusive Development Centre at University College London, is working to develop a more comprehensive and redesigned website that will allow the dissemination of Washington Group information and products among a wider audience. The redesigned website is still under development, with new content and information being added regularly.  The redesigned website can be accessed at www.washingtongroup-disability.com.

Please visit the new website and feel free to contact the WG Secretariat (WG_Secretariat@cdc.gov) if you have any questions or would like to provide feedback on the website’s content or design.