Purpose of Testing Census Questions on Disability

1. Purpose of Testing Census Questions on Disability Regional Meeting of UN Washington City Group on Disability Statistics Rio de Janeiro September 19,20

2. Goal of Questions • Internationally comparable data • Suitable for censuses • Captures most disabled people in a consistent fashion

3. Challenges • Cultures and circumstances widely different across countries • Functional limitations are very varied • Type – mental, physical, sensory • Degree – mild, moderate, significant • Disability is a complex concept that is measured across different domains • Body functions and structure • Activities and participation • Not really a single measure of disability, yet political reality demands reported prevalence rate

4. Purpose of Test • Determine if questions are being interpreted as intended. That is, are they capturing important aspects of selected functional domains • Determine if questions are interpreted consistently across countries • Gain further insight into alternative prevalence measures

5. Types of Testing • Cognitive – A direct look at how people are interpreting the questions – richer testing but less standardized • Field – How do the questions work operationally? What is the relationship between the answers to different questions?

6. Procedure • Normally, cognitive testing done first to refine questions, then field test done to operationalize • In this case, different countries will do things differently • Some countries may only test WG questions • Some are including test within their testing of another instrument – this may restrict how the questions can be tested

7. Objectives • Determination of whether a single question per domain is representative of that domain • Determination of whether the questions produce comparable data across countries • Determination of how the WG questions work as a set in comparison with other questions used by the country