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PubMed · 10381242

Measuring disability with parsimony.

L M Verbrugge·S S Merrill·X Liu
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Abstract

PRIMARY OBJECTIVE: Health surveys, especially those for older persons, include numerous detailed items about disability. There has been little effort to develop a global disability item, that is, one question that covers the concept of disability briefly but well. This article discusses how parsimony can be achieved through a single item, or less desirably by reductions of detailed items. MAIN OUTCOME AND RESULTS: Results of three analyses on the issue of compact disability indicators, using public-use data sets (AHEAD, HRS, BRFSS), are presented. The analyses study relationships of global disability to both detailed disability items and global health. Overall, the results show that a global disability item has good coverage of specific disabilities and is distinct from self-rated health. CONCLUSIONS: Routine inclusion of a global disability item in surveys is recommended, and specific suggestions are made to aid its design.

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Activities of Daily LivingDisability EvaluationPersons with DisabilitiesHealth Status IndicatorsHealth SurveysHumansSurveys and QuestionnairesJournal Article

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L M Verbrugge, S S Merrill, X Liu. Measuring disability with parsimony.. https://doi.org/10.1080/096382899297729

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