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The national data dictionaries offer a mechanism for promoting national disability data consistency, achieved by devising national data elements based on the ICF (Madden et al. 2003).
Disability data elements based on a draft of the ICF (Beta-2 version of the ICIDH-2) were approved for inclusion, on a trial basis, in Version 2 of the National Community Services Data Dictionary (NCSDD) (AIHW 2000). An information annex was included to explain the items and their interrelationships. As the ICIDH-2 Beta-2 version was still a draft classification, subject to further testing, use of excessive detail was avoided. This was to ensure that a balance was struck between remaining consistent with international developments and moving forward in the best possible way to respond to the very significant and urgent need for a more consistent approach to disability data in Australia.
Version 2 of the NCSDD contains:
a definition of disability as a concept
together with
a suite of thirteen related data elements, with definitions related to each other via a common framework. These data elements currently reflect the draft ICIDH-2 framework.
The third version of NCSDD is due for release in 2003. Following the endorsement of the ICF by the World Health Assembly in 2001, some of the data elements trialled in NCSDD 2000 have been revised or developed in line with the ICF and its components of body functions and structures, activities and participation, and environmental factors.
Five data concepts and ten data elements are to be included, each accompanied by definitions and guides for use. These data items are:
Concepts:
Disability
Functioning
Activity - functioning, disability and health
Participation - functioning, disability and health
Assistance with activities and participation.
Data elements:
Body functions
Body structures
Impairment extent
Activities and participation domains
Activities - level of difficulty
Participation extent
Participation - satisfaction with
Environmental factors
Environmental factors - extent of influence
Disability grouping.
The data concept of 'Disability' in the NCSDD guides the user to, and relies on, this set of defining data elements which are intended to be the building blocks for Australian data collections and systems constructed for various specific services and purposes. The resulting systems, and the data produced, will then be able to be related to each other.
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