Meeting to examine disability statistics

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 14: The Department of Statistics would like to advise the public that the 11th Meeting of the Washington Group on Disability Statistics is being held at the Fairmont Southampton from November 14-16, 2011.

The Washington Group (WG), a United Nations City Group, was formed and had its first meeting in 2002, in recognition of the need for statistical and methodological work at the international level to facilitate the comparison of data on disability cross-nationally. It is primarily aimed at creating and promoting measures for generation of disability statistics in censuses and surveys.

In line with the objectives of the WG, a short set of questions on disability has been developed, which is suitable for use in censuses, sample-based national surveys, or other statistical formats. This is intended to provide basic information on disability throughout the world.

Further, the WG aims 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. The focus for this year’s meeting is measurement of child disability and environmental factors.