What to know
The International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) standardizes information on how disability, health, and environment affect a person's ability to function. The ICF enables data sharing across countries, disciplines, and time. The ICF documents a person's functioning as it relates to their disability, health, and environment.
About ICF
The International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) standardizes information on how disability, health, and environment affect a person's ability to perform usual activities (function).
Complex interactions between a person's health, their environment, and other personal factors determine their ability to function and can result in disability. This combination of factors paints a picture of "the person in their world."
Find ICF codes
ICF Features
The ICF considers multiple, interactive, and dynamic components, including—
- Body functions and structure
- Activities related to tasks and actions by a person
- Participation, such as involvement in a life situation
- Additional information on degree of disability and environmental factors
The ICF is applicable to all people, regardless of health condition.
The ICF uses neutral language to emphasize function over disability or disease. It is relevant across culture, age, and gender, and appropriate for diverse populations.
ICF and health care
The ICF is important to health care because it provides—
- A standardized structure, or framework, for describing functioning and disability
- Consideration of a person’s health condition, functioning, environment, and disability
- A global standard for describing health and disability
- Standardized information across individual and population levels
History of ICF
The World Health Organization (WHO) created the International Classification of Impairments, Disabilities, and Handicaps (ICIDH) classification in 1980 as a framework for classifying the effects of diseases. After 10 years of WHO-led, international revision efforts, the World Health Assembly approved the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) on May 22, 2001.
In 1999, the NCVHS Subcommittee on Populations began an 18-month-long review to explore including functional status data in administrative records. The NCVHS approved the resulting report, Classifying and Reporting Functional Status. Visit the NCVHS website to find the full report and transmittal letter to the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.