Applying the ICF linking rules to compare population-based data from different sources: an exemplary analysis of tools used to collect information on disability.

BACKGROUND: Data on disability are regularly collected by different institutions or ministries using specific tools for different purposes, for instance to estimate the prevalence of disability or eligibility of specific populations for social benefits. The interoperability of disability data collected in countries is essential for policy making and to monitor the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The first objective of this paper is to map and compare tools that collect data on disability for different purposes, more specifically the Brazilian National Health Survey and the Brazilian Functioning Index to the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Bank Model Disability Survey (MDS), currently recommended as a standard tool for disability measurement. The second objective is to demonstrate the usefulness and value of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health Linking Rules to map and compare population-based surveys and other content-related tools collecting data on disability, even when these have already been developed based on the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health. METHODS: Disability information collected with the three different tools was mapped and compared using the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health Linking Rules. RESULTS: Although the disability module in the Brazilian National Health Survey is fundamentally different from the MDS, the mapping disclosed that several modules of the Brazilian National Health Survey already cover many aspects necessary to estimate prevalence and understand disability as currently recommended by the WHO and the World Bank. The Brazilian Functioning Index and the MDS are both based on the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health and are very similar in the approach and content of their questions on functioning. Specific information on environmental factors is essential to identify needs and barriers, as well as to devise procedures to reduce injustice and inequalities. This information is still not targeted broadly enough in both the Brazilian National Health Survey and the Brazilian Functioning Index. CONCLUSIONS: Overall, this mapping exercise showed that applying the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health linking rules to population-based data coming from different sources provides researchers and stakeholders involved in decision-making with standardized and straightforward information about overlaps and gaps. Implications for Rehabilitation Data on functioning and disability regularly collected with different purposes and by different institutions or ministries within a country can be compared using the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health as a reference framework and the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health linking rules. The recently published refinements of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health Linking Rules go beyond the sole linking to International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health categories and provide standardized procedures to document the perspective of linked questions or the categorization of response options. They are therefore useful to compared tools that have been developed based on the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health. The current disability module of the Brazilian Health Survey needs a revision to be suitable to collect data on disability that is Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities conform and guarantees interoperability with disability data from other sources in Brazil, especially from disability assessment for social benefits and implementation of policies.

[Deficiency and BPC: what changes in the lives of people assisted?]. / Deficiência e BPC: o que muda na vida das pessoas atendidas?

The aim of this article is to analyze the impact of well-being provoked in the life of the disabled people after the Cash Benefit to Disabled People (BPC). The BPC is a social assistance benefit consisting in an unconditional and monthly transference of the equivalent of a minimum wage, to poor people with deficiency and elders with more than 65 years. The methodology used was a case study with qualitative and quantitative techniques of data collection and analysis. BPC performed interviews guided by a semi-structuralized questionnaire with 30 people with deficiency. The results showed that: (1) BPC is an important mechanism of security of income in the consumption of basic goods of feeding, health treatments and expenses with housing of deficient and its families; (2) disabled people had related the concession of the benefit to the increase of social and financial independence in relation to their families, contributing to expand the idea of autonomy and citizenship; (3) it is an instrument capable of protecting the benefited ones and their families of the situation of social vulnerability result of the poverty, although the mothers of the deficient children leave the work market to take care of their children and do not receive any kind of social protection from the State.