Washington Group on Disability Statistics

Objectives

As the first order of business, 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 accepted 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 objectives 1 and 2 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.