Aging, Functioning, and Rehabilitation: Proceedings of a Workshop (2024)
Chapter: Appendix A: Statement of Task
Appendix A
Statement of Task
A planning committee of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine will organize and host a one-and-a-half-day public workshop that will facilitate a discussion focused on the World Health Organization’s concept of functioning and its role in rethinking the concept of health, with a focus on healthy aging and the future of rehabilitation as a health strategy. The workshop will include presentations on: challenges in operationalizing function as a measure in health policy, rethinking disability as a universal human experience, and discussing a feasible public health agenda that addresses the increasing relevance of rehabilitation for the 21st century.
The workshop will feature invited presentations and panel discussions on topics such as:
- The World Health Organization’s concept of functioning in the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF);
- Moving beyond traditional health outcome measures and operationalizing functioning as a measure of health;
- Standardizing and routinely collecting functioning data in health information systems;
- Ways to integrate functioning into public health strategies for healthy aging and healthy longevity;
- Disability from the perspective of functioning: a universal human experience as well as a discrete social group seeking equity;
- Epidemiology of functioning: the consequences of using functioning as the third health indicator augmenting mortality and morbidity;
- How demographic and epidemiological projections are shaping the future of public health in the context of functioning;
- Conceptualizing and operationalizing rehabilitation as the health strategy that aims to optimize functioning, which could serve as the basis for scaling rehabilitation in the 21st century;
- Functioning and person-centered care: the lived experience of health;
- Functioning and value-based health care.
The planning committee will develop the agenda for the workshop sessions, select and invite speakers and discussants, and moderate the discussions. A proceeding of the presentations and discussions at the workshop shall be prepared by a designated rapporteur in accordance with institutional guidelines.
