Is there data to monitor and research the rights of persons with disabilities?
Date: March 12th 2026
The Disability Statistics – Questionnaire Review (DS-QR) can help you find out
Advocating for disability rights starts with a question. Are those rights protected? We can use household censuses and surveys to answer that. But which ones make it possible to measure the inequalities that persons with disabilities face? The DS-QR Database looks for answers. It finds “functional difficulty questions.” If national censuses and household surveys miss such questions, inequalities may go hidden. We need to collect it to see the full picture.
Why Functional Difficulties?
Functional difficulties are challenges a person might have with basic body actions. Some people may not answer, “Do you have a disability?” They might avoid it because of stigma. This stigma can be cultural or from institutions. Also, people’s definitions of disability can be very different. Two people with color blindness might not agree on whether it’s a disability. Two people with a broken leg may disagree whether that is a disability. A senior might say their limited mobility is just a part of aging, not a disability. So, asking about functional difficulties is a clearer way to measure disability.
In 2017, the United Nations recommended four domains in determining disability status:
- Walking
- Seeing
- Hearing
- Cognition
The UN also notes two other relevant domains:
- Self-care
- Communication
The Washington Group Short Set (WG-SS) is a useful tool. It includes questions that follow all these guidelines. The Washington Group on Disability Statistics (WG) led a worldwide effort. They created these questions. The goal was to make questionnaires that produce internationally comparable data. The DS-QR reports on whether datasets include the WG-SS or other functional difficulty questions that meet the UN recommendations. That way, it reports on the presence of questions that can be used to generate comparable disability data that can be used in national statistics and cross-country comparisons.
Using the DS-QR
The DS-QR database was released a year ago. The Disability Data Initiative (DDI) team updated it in 2025 with over 600 additional datasets being reviewed. This strengthened the coverage of the database, especially for recent years.
The DS-QR Database helps researchers, policymakers, advocates, and citizens. They can easily find countries and datasets with functional difficulty questions. It can also highlight countries and datasets where disability inequalities may go unnoticed. For anyone looking to answer “Are countries realizing the rights of persons with disabilities?”, the DS-QR database is a go-to tool.
Encouraging Findings
The DS-QR database shows that functional difficulty questions are common across countries. For instance, 143 countries had at least one dataset that included the WG-SS between 2009 and 2025. The number of datasets with functional difficulty questions is increasing.
Figure 1 shows the DS-QR results by country. Countries in green have at least one dataset using the Washington Group Short Set (WG-SS). Countries in blue have other functional difficulty questions that meet the UN recommendations. Countries in red have no functional difficulty questions. Countries in grey were not assessed.
Figure 1: Countries with and without functional difficulty questions in national censuses or surveys (2009-2025) as per the DS-QR (2025)
Figure 2 shows that datasets have gotten better at collecting functional difficulty data over time. More datasets from 2014–2018 and 2019–2025 include questions about functional difficulties compared to 2009–2013. In particular, the use of the Washington Group Short Set (WG-SS) has grown recently. Although many datasets still lack disability questions, the overall trend is positive, showing improvement in collecting disability data over time.
Figure 2: This bar chart shows an increase over three time periods (2009-2013, 2014-2018, 2019-2025) in the percentage of datasets with the WG-SS and in the percentage of datasets with Other functional difficulty questions
Figure 3 shows that the use of functional difficulty questions has steadily increased over time in all regions. Europe & Central Asia (ECA) improved from the earliest period to 2014–2018 and has adopted these questions even more in recent years. Other regions like North America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and South Asia also show strong growth. Overall, the graph highlights positive progress worldwide.
Figure 3: Datasets with functional difficulty questions (WG-SS or other functional difficulty questions) over time by region (%Suggested citation for this blog: Disability Data Initiative (DDI) (2026).
Is there data to monitor and research the rights of persons with disabilities? The Disability Statistics – Questionnaire Review (DS-QR) can help you find out. If you would like step-by-step instructions for navigating and interpreting the database, we have prepared a Guide for Using the DS-QR Database. The guide explains how to explore the web platform, download the dataset, and understand the results.You can access the guide here.
Suggested citation for this blog: Disability Data Initiative (DDI). (2026).Is there data to monitor and research the rights of persons with disabilities? The Disability Statistics – Questionnaire Review (DS-QR) can help you find out.March 11th 2026. Accessed at https://www.disabilitydatainitiative.org/publications/DDIblog2026-01