Population Health Research Brief Series

Abstract

U.S. federal surveys commonly use two question sets to measure disability: the American Community Survey (ACS-6) and the Washington Group Short Set (WG-SS). This data slice uses data from the 2011-2012 National Health Interview Survey to examine the percentage of disabled people captured by these two different survey sets. The authors find that both sets of questions significantly underreport disability statuses that are not directly addressed in their question prompts, including intellectual disability, developmental disability, birth defects, mental health disability, diabetes, and cancer.