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

2024  Journal Article

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

Pub TLDR

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)

OSU Profile

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.

Mulcahy, A.C., Govier, D.J., Than, C., Chawla, N., Danan, E.R., Hooker, E.R., McCready, H., Hoggatt, K.J., Yano, E.M., Hynes, D.M. (2024) Application of a comprehensive disability measure: Disability prevalence among US veterans and non-veterans from the National Health Interview Survey Data from 2015 to 2018Preventive Medicine185