Nearly 27 percent of US adults have a disability, with evidence that rates of disability have been increasing over time, especially in recent years due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

For some people, disability is congenital; for others, disability is acquired at some point between childhood and older age. Some disabled people weave their disability into their identity; others do not. And although many disabled people experience functional limitations, this is not the case for all disabled people. Despite these variations, it is critical to measure disability in a robust way. And yet, current approaches to measuring disability do not sufficiently capture the complexity of disabled populations.

This failure can have serious consequences. Inaccurate or insufficient measures can have a profound impact on the evaluation and allocation of disability-related programming and resources. It is in this context that we believe public officials, researchers, and advocates must urgently work together to improve disability measures.