Methodology

The e-publication Arab Disability Statistics in Numbers is based on national data compiled and verified from NSOs through a questionnaire specially designed to address the needs of policymakers in the region, and those related to monitoring of the SDGs and, most importantly, of the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The data collected provide a wealth of information on persons with disabilities in areas such as demography, education, employment, occupation, and industry, disaggregated by sex and geographical area.

Countries in the region have a diverse experience in compiling disability statistics from different sources, such as population censuses and household surveys for poverty, labour force, health and household budget. Those that replied to the questionnaire fall in two categories: countries that applied the WG-SS of questions and those that did not. Table 1 provides a list of countries that applied the WG-SS on functioning in their censuses and household surveys and countries that did not apply the WG-SS.

Abbreviations: DHS, demographic and health survey; HBS, household budget survey; I-PMMS, Iraq Poverty and Maternal Mortality Survey; LFS, labour force survey.

Notes:

• Data for Qatar and Tunis (WG) in addition to Sudan and Syria (Non-WG), are in the compilation process. Data will be published once verified.
• Data from Oman and Saudi Arabia are for nationals only.

The WG-SS approach identifies people as having a disability if they have a lot of difficulty doing at least one basic activity in a core functional domain: seeing, hearing, mobility, cognition (remembering/ concentrating), communication or self-care. The questions are designed to identify persons who are at greater risk than the general population of experiencing restrictions in participation in society. They were selected based on two criteria: (a) they cover the large majority of functional limitations that people might have; and (b) they are functional domains that can be adequately captured with a single question.

However, few countries did not include all six domains of the short set questions. For cultural reasons, some excluded ‘self-care’, another country excluded the essential domain of ‘cognition’ (remembering/concentrating), while others added ‘upper body’ from the WG extended domains. Therefore, caution should be exercised when comparing together countries as per the domains used in identifying disability.

The four response categories, which capture the full spectrum of functioning are: “No, no difficulty”; “Yes, some difficulty”; “Yes, a lot of difficulty”; and “Cannot do at all”. For the purposes of international comparisons, the WG recommends that those with disability be defined as those who answer the questions with “a lot of difficulty” or “cannot do at all”.

Countries that did not apply the WG methodology have applied either two response categories—“yes” or “no”— or three response categories—“yes, difficult/severe” or “yes, limited/moderately” or “no”. In the ESCWA questionnaire, countries that have not applied the WG methodology aligned their response categories, as per their national definitions, with those of the WG by considering people with disabilities as those under response categories “yes”, and “yes, difficult/severe” and those without disabilities as those under response categories “yes, limited/moderately” and “no”.

Moreover, countries using the WG-SS of questions implemented differently how the questions were asked; some countries used a multi-code question, where the respondent could select, correctly, more than one difficulty (Table 3- example A), and few other countries used a single code question, where the respondent could select only one type of difficulty (Table 4- example B).

It is therefore, imperative when conducting a comparative analysis to group those countries that applied the Washington group separately from those that did not. Moreover, it is necessary to separate those that applied the Washington Group short set of questions with a multi-code system from those countries that applied a single-code per person (Table below). Two countries, Egypt and Oman, used the Washington Group short set of questions, but with a single code which is incorrectly applied. Both countries also used a screening question, which is considered a deterrent to revealing a difficulty and consequently have an impact on prevalence rates. Saudi Arabia and Tunis applied correctly the WG-SS multi-code system but used a screening question not in accordance with international recommendations.

The Washington Group recommends that prevalence rates for disability, for all six domains at three levels of difficulties, are to be calculated as per the highest difficulty of any of the six domains. Moreover, the Washington Group does not recommend using reason, as it does not answer any policy question.

However, some countries have added incorrectly a reason after each domain which may have affected the results, such as in Iraq, Palestine and Tunisia. Other countries have added only one single reason without specifying the related domain; such as Saudi Arabia and Yemen.

The population and sample size and respective prevalences’ as provided by the countries are presented in the tables below:

The e-publication will be updated periodically as countries collect more disability statistics. The scope of areas will also be expanded to allow further in-depth analysis in the future. The Statistics Division will publish a technical report with a statistical analysis on Disability Indicators and the Sustainable Development Agenda for the Arab Region in 2018.