N C H S - Washington City Group on Disability Measurement--Third Meeting--Agenda

The Washington Group on Disability Measurement 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 Division 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. Click here to view other City Group Web sites.

Fourth meeting
Washington Group on Disability Statistics
September 29-October 1, 2004: Bangkok, Thailand
The fourth meeting of the Washington Group on Disability Statistics will be held 29 September to 1 October in Bangkok, Thailand. The major agenda topics for the meeting emanated from work presented at the third meeting. Three workgroups were formed to address these major topics. Chairs have been identified for each workgroup. The chairs will also serve as the contact for each group. Information on the workgroup topics and chairs is provided below. In addition, one of the sessions planned for the third meeting was postponed to the fourth meeting. The topic for this session and the session leader are also provided below. If you wish to volunteer to participate in one of these groups, please contact the workgroup/session leaders.

Workgroup 1
Chair – Barbara Altman, USA
The group will generate a draft set of questions (short form) related to the purpose of assessing equalization of opportunity. This group was charged with developing a list of measurement domains and criteria to rank domains for potential inclusion, determining if inclusion of a severity indicator is necessary, addressing the issue of accommodations, and if time allows, the group will pilot the proposed questions. The UNSD will help to identify countries in which piloting could be carried out.

Workgroup 2
Chair – Bothaina El-Deeb, Egypt; capmas_presaffr@yahoo.com or capmas_presaffr@hotmail.com)
The group will prepare a paper proposing method/s for implementing the general disability measure (short form). Elements of the proposal will address the issues of pilot testing, translation, enumerator training, and comparability.

Workgroup 3
Chair – Marijke de Kleijn, The Netherlands)
The group will prepare a paper proposing an approach for development of extended measurement set/s related to the general disability measure/s.

Special Session
Leader – Howard Meltzer, United Kingdom
In this session, methodological issues relating to inclusion of special population on surveys and censuses in order to obtain full population coverage (such as the institutionalized population, children, and homeless persons) and on implications for disability statistics will be discussed.

Discuss the position paper on proposed methods for implementing the general disability measure (workgroup 2).

Discuss the position paper on a proposed approach for development of extended measurement sets related to the general disability measure (workgroup 3).

The Steering Committee chair will lead a discussion on strategic issues, including the identification of next steps.

Contacts
Beth Rasch (for agenda and meeting content)
National Center for Health Statistics
3311 Toledo Road, Room 6110
Hyattsville, MD 20782
Telephone: 301-458-4248
Fax: 301-458-4037
Email: Erasch@cdc.gov

Lene Mikkelsen (for local arrangements)
Chief, Statistics Development Section
Statistics Division, ESCAP
United Nations Building
Rajadamnern Ave., Bangkok 10200
Thailand
Telephone: 66 2288-1653
Fax: (66) 2288-1082
Email: Mikkelsen@un.org