Beyond ESG-driven attempts to measure corporate actions on accessibility and inclusion, it is worth looking at how governments, international bodies, and independent organizations include accessibility in attempts to measure community wellbeing.  What is striking is how few community wellbeing measurement tools include accessibility, at virtually every scale, from the global to the local.  Disability data in general is in short supply; As the New York-based Disability Research Initiative notes, “disability questions of any kind are absent for 24 percent of countries and 65 percent of datasets.”^[1] In social science, it is easier to theorize (or qualitatively describe) a social construct than to measure it.  As such, to the extent disability is a social construct, good quality quantitative measurement is elusive.

International Metrics

At an international scale, the UN’s Human Development Index (HDI), for example, includes metrics of access to education or health care for the general population, but there are no metrics pertaining to accessibility in a disability context.  Similarly, the Social Progress Imperative (SPI), while measuring a greater range of access variables (e.g. to sanitation, recreation, participation in democratic institutions, and so on), and though it includes certain indicators relating to other kinds of minority groups, also does not include any metrics on accessibility in a disability context.  Neither the World Happiness Report or Happy Planet Index reference access either.

Among other countries, the New Zealand Living Standards Framework is the most robust and high-level national wellbeing index.  While the Framework notably includes many measures designed by, and specific to, Māori inclusion and cultural vibrancy, there is no consideration of disability or accessibility. As one study critical of this exclusion noted, “disabled people and their whānau have poorer outcomes across a wide range of wellbeing and living standards measures. Yet disability analysis does not appear to be well integrated into government decision-making on wellbeing.”^[2] Scotland appears to be the country with the most integration of disability considerations into overall well-being indices.  Scotland’s National Performance Framework includes breakdowns within most indices based on population, including by disability.^[3]  Scotland also has a very user-friendly way of organizing data by population, including a dashboard on disability metrics related to demographics, access, health, employment, business ownership, etc.^[4]

Despite this arid landscape, there are some international accessibility benchmarks worth noting: The UN Economic and Social Council produces the Disability and Development Report, which benchmarks progress on accessibility against the UN SDGs. Disability:IN, in partnership with the American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD), runs a Global Disability Equality Index, designed for companies to benchmark their disability inclusion journey.^[5]  The International Network on the Disability Creation Process (a Quebec-based research-driven NGO) offers assessment tools to measure the quality of the environment and the life habits of people with impairments or disabilities.  One of these tools is the Assessment of life habits (LIFE-H) a questionnaire measuring the accomplishment of life habits in the home, workplace or school, neighborhood, and identifies the disabling situations experienced in these same realms.^[6]  HealthMeasures, a platform powered by Northwestern University, is useful for finding all gold-standard, open-access measures related to well-being, life satisfaction, and meaning and purpose related to various disabilities (as well as caregivers).^[7]  There are also a number of specific independent ratings of accessibility of countries and cities.  The Say Foundation ranks countries for overall accessibility, particularly from a tourism perspective, ranking Portugal, Brazil, Australia, the UK, and the US as the most accessible countries in descending order (though it is not clear what, if any, quantitative measurement criteria the Foundation uses).^[8]

Measurement in Canada

In Canada, the federal government is working towards a national well-being measurement framework, noting that “better measurement of distributional differences in quality of life outcomes should complement direct engagement with historically marginalized groups, including… persons with disabilities…”.^[9] Domestic national metrics of accessibility are challenged by the availability of data, or lack thereof. The UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities as recently as 2017 highlighted their concern that Canada “does not have up-to-date quantitative and qualitative data on the situation of persons with disabilities.”^[10]  Statistics Canada and other federal departments are collaborating under authority of the 2019 Accessible Canada Act to collect and analyze accessibility data.  This 5-year Accessibility Data and Measurement Strategy includes the recent launch of the Accessibility Data Hub.^[11]  The Hub includes data on the built environment, transportation, communication, employment, information technology, and federal programs and services.  The Canadian Survey on Disability (CSD) is another initiative that will collect and share information every 5 years about the lived experiences of Canadian youth and adults living with disabilities or long-term health-related problems.^[12] The CSD, introduced in 2012, adapting the former Participation and Activity Limitation Survey (PALS), was most recently conducted in 2022 (data release is pending). Some of the main findings of the 2017 survey are referenced elsewhere in this scan. The Treasury Board Secretariat of the federal government has drafted an accessibility strategy for the public service, with the aim of becoming the most accessible and inclusive public service in the world.^[13]  This Federal Data and Measurement Strategy for Accessibility will include 10 metrics across 5 goals.

Locally, the Calgary Equity Index^[14] does not currently include indicators for accessibility or data relating to disability, nor does the Calgary Foundation Quality of Life Report (formerly Vital Signs).^[15]  The City of Calgary publishes a Disability Population Profile, but the most recent one (2016) relies on 2012 CSD data.  Sustainable Calgary’s State of Our City Report, while not addressing accessibility directly, does include metrics on financial vulnerability, including those dependent on AISH, showing a positive trendline between 2005 to 2014, then a neutral trend line subsequently.^[16]  Although a 2022 Community Wellbeing Report, produced by Vibrant Communities Calgary, did not have disability-specific indicators, it noted that “participants with disabilities faced the challenges of restrictive work schedules, mobility challenges, money to pay for outings or extracurricular activities, and transportation barriers.”^[17]