(Stewart & Ware, 1992). In an international context, a limitation of such questions is in how daily activities, especially beyond basic ones, may vary considerably across contexts, and thus, one drawback of ADLs in international studies is their potential lack of comparability.

# **Broad activity limitation**

A broad activity limitation question asks the respondent if he/she is limited in their usual activities due to a chronic health condition or an impairment, such as work or housework for adults or attending school for children. It relates to role functioning, the extent to which an individual performs or has the capacity to perform activities typical for a specific age and social responsibility (Steward and Ware 1992). Because it is only one question, it is easy to insert in a survey. Similar to intermediate ADLs, usual activities vary in an international context, and answers may thus not be comparable across countries. A broad activity limitation question has additional drawbacks (Mitra 2018). Conceptually, such a question gets at a health condition or impairment as well as a potential resulting deprivation. Thus, it tries to get the causal link from the health condition/impairment to the deprivation, as perceived by the respondent. Respondents may not be aware of the ways that their health condition or impairment affects their broad activities. Responses may also be subject to different types of biases. For instance, the rationalization bias may encourage a person who does not work to report a health condition as the primary reason for non-employment, even if it is not. Another example is when people have adapted to their impairment in such a way that they no longer perceive how it affects their employment.

A broad activity limitation question makes it difficult to monitor disability over time. As an example, using a broad activity limitation question related to schooling among children: ‘is your child limited in the amount or the type of schooling you can have due to a physical, mental or emotional condition?’ Such a question does identify persons with perceived limited schooling opportunities due to a health condition. This question does not identify children with health conditions who have been able to access schooling, which is problematic. It is problematic that the outcome (employment or education) is part of the question. That makes it impossible to disaggregate across disability status. Using such a question, say in an environment where education becomes more inclusive through the provision of accommodations in schools, one would get a decline in the prevalence of disability over time but the negative correlation between schooling attendance and disability may persist or worsen as disability may include people with the more severe health conditions.

# **General Disability**

Censuses and surveys sometimes have a general disability question such as _“Do you have a disability?”_ This general question has sometimes been used with answers about disability types or impairments (e.g. blindness, deafness, paralysis) or with a yes/no answer as a screen for a follow-up question asking about disability type or impairment. Such a general question was very common in the censuses of the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and 2000s (e.g. United Nations 1990).

The general disability question is problematic in terms of the validity of what it measures. First, it is unclear what such a general question measures as disability may mean different things to different interviewees. Additionally, impairments may be unknown to respondents, especially in the context of populations with limited access to health care or information. Furthermore, disability and impairments may be stigmatized and thus interviewees may not feel comfortable 7