Application of a comprehensive disability measure: Disability prevalence among US veterans and non-veterans from the National Health Interview Survey Data from 2015 to 2018
This research paper compares the prevalence of disabilities among US veterans and non-veterans using a comprehensive measure. Results show that veterans have a higher prevalence of disabilities than non-veterans, and a higher prevalence than previously reported. This highlights the need for a broader definition of disability in public policy and future research.
College of Health researcher(s)
Highlights
- We adapted an eight-category disability measure using the US National Health Interview Survey.
- Our measure includes intersecting disability categories for Veterans and non-Veterans.
- Our measure reveals that more people experience some disability than using previous definitions.
- In any year, two-thirds of Veterans and two-fifths of non-Veterans have any type of disability.
- Findings suggest service-connected disability for Veterans may not represent disability fully.
Abstract
Background
Current measures of condition-specific disabilities or those capturing only severe limitations may underestimate disability prevalence, including among Veterans.
Objectives
To develop a comprehensive measure to characterize and compare disabilities among US Veterans and non-Veterans.
Methods
Using 2015–2018 pooled cross-sectional National Health Interview Survey data, we compared the frequency and survey-weighted prevalence of non-mutually exclusive sensory, social, and physical disabilities by Veteran status. We developed a measure for and examined the frequency and survey-weighted prevalence of eight mutually exclusive disability categories—sensory only; physical only; social only; sensory and physical; social and sensory; physical and social; and sensory, social, and physical.
Results
Among 118,818 NHIS respondents, 11,943 were Veterans. Veterans had a greater prevalence than non-Veterans of non-mutually exclusive physical [52.01% vs. 34.68% (p < 0.001)], sensory [44.47% vs. 21.79% (p < 0.001)], and social [17.20% vs. 11.61% (p < 0.001)] disabilities (after survey-weighting). The most frequently reported mutually exclusive disability categories for both Veterans and non-Veterans were sensory and physical (19.20% and 8.02%, p < 0.001) and physical only (16.24% and 15.69%, p = 0.216) (after survey-weighting). The least frequently reported mutually exclusive disability categories for both Veterans and non-Veterans were social only (0.31% and 0.44%, p = 0.136) and sensory and social (0.32% and 0.20%, respectively, 0.026) (after survey-weighting).
Conclusions
Our disability metric demonstrates that Veterans have a higher disability prevalence than non-Veterans, and a higher prevalence than previously reported. Public policy and future research should consider this broader definition of disability to more fully account for the variable needs of people with disabilities.