Measuring disability with European Union (EU) data harmonisation guidance

This harmonised standard is under development following the Inclusive Data Taskforce recommendations to review and update the harmonised standards every five years. This is in line with the GSS Harmonisation Workplan where disability has been identified as a priority topic.

You can find more information about this in the “Further information” section of this page. If you would like to be involved with this work, please contact us at Harmonisation@statistics.gov.uk.

Policy details

Harmonisation is the process of making statistics and data more comparable, consistent, and coherent. Harmonised standards set out how to collect and report statistics to ensure comparability across different data collections. This produces more useful statistics and give users a greater level of understanding about this topic.

The following guidance sets out how to measure disability. This is based on the criteria used by different organisations or legislation to classify a person as disabled. These are for use in social surveys and administrative sources. They have been developed through engagement activities with key stakeholders including the devolved administrations.

This standard combines the long-lasting health conditions and illness and activity restriction standards to measure disability for the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC).

This guidance shows the classifications designed for EU-SILC (EU Survey of Income and Living Conditions). It classifies long-lasting health conditions or illnesses and disability measurement by extent of activity restriction. These measures are for cross-country comparisons. Estimates are designed to benchmark with a European average.

This method defines disability for EU-SILC based on the UK harmonised disability questions. It produces similar results to the Eurostat global activity limitation (GALI) question. The European Health Interview Survey (EHIS) and member states who do not have equivalent questions use this GALI question.

The two classifications are:

• if a person has a long-standing illness or health problem
• if a person is hampered in their daily activities

One important difference from the Equality Act measure is that for EU data collection a person needs to have had a health problem for at least six months, rather than at least 12 months.

The harmonised question(s) on this topic are designed to collect basic information, for use in the majority of surveys. They are not designed to replace questions used in specialist surveys where more detailed analysis is required.

Questions

How a respondent answers three questions will classify them as either:

• having a long-standing illness or health problem
• being severely hampered in daily activities
• being hampered in daily activities to some extent

Question 1: Do you have any physical or mental health conditions or illnesses lasting or expected to last for 12 months or more?
Question 2: Does your condition or illness/do any of your conditions or illnesses reduce your ability to carry out day-to-day activities?
Question 3: For how long has your ability to carry out day-to-day activities been reduced?

Classification

This section shows what responses are required for each classification.

EU-SILC classification: long-standing illness or health problem

Question	Response options
Do you have any physical or mental health conditions or illnesses lasting or expected to last 12 months or more?	Yes

 

EU-SILC classification: severely hampered in daily activities

Question	Response options
Do you have any physical or mental health conditions or illnesses lasting or expected to last 12 months or more?	Yes
Does your condition or illness\do any of your conditions or illnesses reduce your ability to carry-out day-to-day activities?	Yes, a lot
For how long has your ability to carry-out day-to-day activities been reduced?	Between 6 months and 12 months 12 months or more

 

EU-SILC classification: hampered in daily activities to some extent

Question	Response options
Do you have any physical or mental health conditions or illnesses lasting or expected to last 12 months or more?	Yes
Does your condition or illness\do any of your conditions or illnesses reduce your ability to carry-out day-to-day activities?	Yes, a little
For how long has your ability to carry-out day-to-day activities been reduced?	Between 6 months and 12 months 12 months or more

Outputs

This table shows output categories for EU-SILC data. The coding used for these categories should comply with the coding conventions applied in the specific survey source. An example is given in the table.

Output category	Nominal scale
Severely hampered in daily activities	Numeric 1
Hampered in daily activities to some extent	Numeric 2
Not hampered in daily activities	Numeric 3
Refusal	-9

The questions used to output disability for EU-SILC come from the GSS harmonised standard for EU-SILC data. Those outputs that have been produced from data collected using this standard will be comparable. However, we would not recommend comparing estimates from this output to those found in publications that do not use the harmonised measure.

How this standard should be used

What types of data collection this standard can be used for

These questions measure the extent and duration of restrictions carrying out day-to-day activities if a person has any long-lasting health conditions or illness. They are for use in social surveys.

The standard can be used for:

• interviewer-led questionnaires
• computer assisted personal interviewing (CAPI)
• computer assisted telephone interviewing (CATI)
• paper-based and online self-completion forms

Both questions can be asked by proxy if the respondent is aged under 16 or they are unable to respond in person.

What surveys use this standard

Some examples of surveys this harmonised standard has been adopted by are:

• Family Resources Survey
• Health Survey for England
• Labour Force Survey
• Living Costs and Food Survey
• Millennium Cohort Study

Further information

For more information about the two classification questions, see:

• long-lasting health conditions and illness
• activity restriction

Inclusive Data Taskforce and GSS Harmonisation Workplan

In October 2020, the National Statistician established the Inclusive Data Taskforce. It was designed to improve the UK’s inclusive data holdings in a broad range of areas. This includes the nine protected characteristics of the Equality Act.

In September 2021 the Taskforce recommendations were published. Some of these recommendations specifically refer to harmonisation.

In response to the recommendations, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) oversaw the publication of an Implementation Plan in January 2022. This gives information about the current and planned initiatives across the UK statistical system. It refers to a GSS Harmonisation workplan, which was published in August 2024. This workplan includes reviewing, refining, and updating harmonised standards.

The workplan sets out activities for this standard in relation to disability. This includes:

• reviewing the topic area
• working with stakeholders and user groups to make sure disability standards meet user needs
• testing possible improvements and changes to the question design for the disability standards

Timescales for this work will be guided by the feedback the team gets throughout the project. We have:

• run research and engagement activities throughout 2022
• published the first findings from our research and engagement work in our review of the disability harmonised standards

We are now working to:

run further research and engagement activities throughout 2024
design draft questions for updating the disability standards by 2025 — this will depend on our research and engagement findings
publish updated online self-completion questions, followed by face-to-face mode questions
You can find updates on timelines and project activities in the GSS Harmonisation Workplan.

The Inclusive Data Taskforce (IDTF) also put out recommendations specifically for disability harmonised standards. These included the need to revise measures of disability to make them closer to the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) biopsychosocial model.

The biopsychosocial model of disability considers environmental factors but also includes the role of health conditions such as diseases, disorders and injuries.

There are two other models of disability:

• the medical model of disability focuses on a person’s condition or illness and the impairments that result from it
• the social model of disability stands in opposition to the medical model and places the disablement process on societal barriers rather than in the individual

Questions relevant to the social and biopsychosocial models focus on activity limitations and participation restrictions regardless of medical diagnosis.

The long lasting health condition and illness and activity restriction harmonised standards were designed to align with the Equality Act (2010) and Disability Discrimination Act (1995). It is important to note that UK legislation and the social model of disability are incompatible in some ways. For example, the Equality Act (2010) considers certain people, such as people with progressive conditions or receiving treatment, to be disabled regardless of whether they encounter barriers.

The impairment harmonised standard aligns with the social model of disability to some degree. The question concentrates on impairments rather than health conditions. But the guidance for the “socially or behaviourally” response option does mention specific medical diagnoses. We are looking to address this in the near future.

The harmonised standards will continue to align to legislation, but we will also try to incorporate elements of the social and biopsychosocial models wherever possible. In our recent review of the disability harmonised standard we shared that we will consider creating an additional question that is aligned more closely to the social model of disability.

Contact us

We are always interested in hearing from users so we can develop our work. If you would like to be involved with this work or you use or produce statistics based on this topic, contact us at Harmonisation@statistics.gov.uk.

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