Evaluating the Reliability of the Washington Group Short Set of Questions in Assessing the Well-Being of Older Individuals in Malawi.

Monica Jamali-Phiri, University of Malawi

Despite the growing proportion of aging individuals in Sub-Saharan Africa, research on aging remains neglected. To address this gap, the Washington Group on Disability Statistics developed a set of questions on disability for censuses and surveys. This paper focuses on assessing the reliability of the Washington Group's short set of questions in measuring the functional status of the elderly in Malawi, using data from the 2018 Malawi Population and Housing census. Employing descriptive and Cronbach’s alpha test statistics, the study reveals that the short set of questions is unreliable in assessing the functional status of older individuals in the country, with a low Cronbach’s alpha value of 0.41. This finding implies that population censuses are not adequately capturing the demographics of the elderly population. Consequently, there is a clear need for the inclusion of additional functional status questions targeting older individuals in future censuses to enhance demographic understanding.