Semantic aspects of the international classification of functioning, disability and health: towards sharing knowledge and unifying information

During the last decade, under the World Health Organization's direction, the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) has become a reference tool for monitoring and developing various policies addressing people with disability. This article presents three steps to increase the semantic interoperability of ICF: first, the representation of ICF using ontology tools; second, the alignment to upper-level ontologies; and third, the use of these tools to implement semantic mappings between ICF and other tools, such as disability assessment instruments, health classifications, and at least partially formalized terminologies.