Availability and quality of global disability data: A commentary on the Demographic and Health Surveys

In the field of global health, there are very little data available regarding disability. Global health datasets including disability indicators operationalize the term disability in a variety of ways, making calculating global trends and cross-country comparisons by researchers difficult. The Washington Group on Disability Statistics has developed easily implemented questionnaires regarding disability to increase the availability of disability data. In 2014, the Demographic and Health Surveys program developed a disability data collection module based on theWashington Group Short Set of Questions. It is an optional module and has been implemented in fewer than 20 countries. Some countries had made adjustments to the questions while other countries have included disability using completely different questionnaires. This doesn't solve the problem of data consistency and cross-country comparison. Based on the data collected, there are also concerns regarding the quality of the available data and how the data is being collected. (c) 2020 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

In the field of global health, there is a lack of available data on disabilities. Global health datasets use various operational definitions for disability indicators, making it challenging for researchers to calculate global trends and compare data across countries. The Washington Group on Disability Statistics has introduced user-friendly questionnaires to increase the availability of disability data, but there are issues with data consistency and cross-country comparisons due to different data collection methods used by countries.