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Measuring disability : an examination of differences between the Washington Group Short Set on Functioning and the American Community Survey disability questions
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08/09/2021
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Description:Objective―This report examines differences in survey reports of disability between two sets of disability questions, the Short Set on Functioning (WG–SS) developed by the Washington Group on Disability Statistics (WG) and a set of disability questions developed for the American Community Survey (ACS).
Methods―Data from the 2011–2012 National Health Interview Survey were used to examine agreement between the WG–SS and ACS measures. One difference between the question sets is the ACS questions have dichotomous “yes” or “no” responses while the WG–SS questions have four answer categories reflecting a continuum of difficulty. Unweighted prevalence estimates of disability and odds ratios are presented for the subset of respondents who provided self-reports to both sets to understand the level of agreement and investigate differences between the two.
Results―Approximately twice as many adults were identified as having disability by the ACS measure compared with the WG–SS measure. This result holds across all subgroups examined. Given the high percentage of respondents reporting no difficulty on both question sets, nonagreement between the two measures is generally low. A variety of sociodemographic and health factors contributed to the observed discordance. While responses of “a lot of difficulty” or “cannot do at all” to the WG–SS questions are highly concordant with “yes” responses to the ACS questions, WG–SS respondents answering “some difficulty” are more likely to have provided “yes” responses to the ACS questions. As a result, the population with disability defined by the ACS questions is more heterogenous in functional level than that defined by the WG–SS questions.
Conclusion―The ACS disability measure identifies a higher percentage of respondents with disability than the WG–SS measure, yet overall agreement between the two measures is high. The WG–SS ordinal response categories allow for an examination of disability severity, which is useful in describing the full continuum of functioning.
Suggested citation: Weeks JD, Dahlhamer JM, Madans JH, Maitland A. Measuring disability: An examination of differences between the Washington Group Short Set on Functioning and the American Community Survey disability questions. National Health Statistics Reports; no 161. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics. 2021. DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.15620/cdc:107202.
CS325119
nhsr161-508.pdf
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Pages in Document:19 numbered pages
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Issue:161
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