ICDR State-of-the-Art Conference

New Federal Applications of the ICF*

 

Tuesday and Wednesday, July 10 and 11, 2007

Venue: Sheraton Crystal City Hotel, 1800 Jefferson Davis Highway, Arlington, VA 22202, Phone: (703) 486-1111. This boutique-style hotel is located adjacent to the Crystal City Metro, minutes from Reagan National Airport, Washington DC and Alexandria, VA.

Sponsorship: This Interagency Committee on Disability Research (ICDR) State-of-the-Art Conference is jointly sponsored by two ICDR subcommittees — the Interagency Subcommittee on Disability Statistics (ISDS) and the Interagency Subcommittee on the New Freedom Initiative (ISNFI)

Cost: Registration is free and open on a limited basis to federal employees, government contractors, researchers interested in federally-sponsored disability research, disability stakeholders and consumers.

About the Conference:

Persons with disability have specific needs related to accessing benefits or services in health care, education, transportation, housing, employment, or leisure activities. These difficulties have been well-documented, and they represent important areas in the President’s New Freedom Initiative. But federal efforts to minimize the problems have been very challenging because of scientific or programmatic difficulties in defining, describing, or targeting the population concerned.

One important tool for achieving success in these areas is the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF), published by the World Health Organization in 2001. The National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics referred to the ICF as “the only existing classification system that could be used to code functional status across the age span” (2001). The Institute of Medicine (IOM) recently recommended that “relevant government units involved in disability monitoring should adopt the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health as their conceptual framework” (2007). The IOM also recommended that the federal Interagency Subcommittee on Disability Statistics [ISDS] and the Interagency Committee on Disability Research [ICDR] “should coordinate the work of these agencies to develop, test, validate, and implement new measures of disability that correspond to the components of the ICF, consistent with public policy priorities” (2007).

On July 10 and 11, please join the ISDS and its counterpart ICDR subcommittee, the Interagency Subcommittee on the New Freedom Initiative (ISNFI), for their “State-of-the-Art Conference” to explore new applications of the ICF in federal activities related to disability and rehabilitation. Both federal and non-federal participants are welcome, and registration is free. This conference will also emphasize new developments related to including the ICF in federal Health Information Technology enhancements, toward standardizing patient and client assessment instruments and transmitted data, that contain functioning and disability content. Your participation in this important conference will contribute to the capacity of the ISDS, the ISNFI, and the ICDR to meet their challenges for coordinating and implementing new measures of disability corresponding to the ICF.

For additional information, please contact Barbara Rosen (brosen@cessi.net) or Robin Toliver (rtoliver@cessi.net)at CESSI.

*The International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) is on the WHO Homepage at: http://www3.who.int/icf/icftemplate.cfm.