Interagency Committee on Disability Research (ICDR)
Interagency Subcommittee on Disability Statistics (ISDS)

ISDS State of the Art Conference: Developing Improved Disability Data

July 12-13, 2006

A goal of the Interagency Committee on Disability Research is to develop a plan to present to Congress for the design and implementation of an improved periodic national disability data collection effort.

The ICDR envisions the development of a periodic national disability data collection effort. Member agencies agree such an effort is needed, but have different views on how best to accomplish this goal. One approach is the development of a separate national disability survey and another is the systematic collection of disability data, including improved disability questions within existing national surveys. The use of a combined approach might also be possible. This is further complicated by the broad spectrum of areas in which various agencies need to collect information on topics such as employment, health care, education, housing, transportation and others.

The ICDR/ISDS 2006 conference will explore characteristics of an ideal national disability data collection effort across agencies, and how such an effort might be implemented. 

Conference Objectives

  1. To identify gaps in the availability and collection of disability data, particularly across agencies and as used by the federal government.
  2. To identify issues and problem areas of a potential National Survey on Disability, including discussion of factors in favor of a new separate survey versus implementing subsets of surveys already in place.
  3. To evaluate issues associated with setting up a National Survey on Disability in the ICF context.
  4. To continue development and dissemination of “best practices” for including respondents with disabilities in surveys.