The Screening Question

A screening question (See Box 13) should not be used before asking the WG-SS. If a screener is used, then, in effect, it is the screener that is being used to identify people with disabilities and not the WG-SS. Thus, a screener completely undermines the WG approach.

Evidence shows that single screener questions do not adequately identify the population of interest.  Most screeners are of the form “Do you have a disability?” with yes/no answer categories.  A question with a yes/no response option forces the person answering to self-identify as having the difficulty or not, and, as previously mentioned, the term “disability” is problematic.

Some screeners do not use the term “disability” but ask about medical conditions.  While respondents can describe their difficulty through the activities they can perform, often they cannot report on their conditions. For example, respondents may be unaware of their conditions due to a lack of medical care and therefore knowledge. Furthermore, no list of conditions can ever be complete. The search for a one or two question screener that will identify the population of interest and results in no false negatives has been universally unsuccessful.

The Principles and Recommendations for Population and Housing Censuses, Revision 3, recommends to countries the use of the six Washington Group Short Set questions to identify persons with disability. Countries that are planning additional specialized surveys on disability may want to use the census to develop a sampling frame for these surveys. In such cases, the disability data collected as part of the census may be used as a screening instrument to identify persons with disabilities who will be interviewed in a follow-up survey. Before embarking on using the census to develop a frame for a followup survey, it is important that the legal implications of using the census data for this purpose are fully considered. When required by country-specific policies, respondents should be informed that the data may be used for follow-up surveys or studies, and national authorities responsible for ensuring the privacy rights of the population may need to be consulted in order to obtain their approval on this matter (Box 12).

Box 12. The use of census to screen for disability and follow-up with other surveys

Box 13. Avoid using the screener question