Centre for Policy on Ageing



Persistent, consistent, widespread, and robust? — another look at recent in old-age disability
Author(s)	Robert F Schoeni, Vicki A Freedman, Robert B Wallace
Journal title	Journals of Gerontology: Series B, Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, vol 56B, no 4, July 2001
Pages	pp S206-S218
Keywords	Physical disabilities ; Longitudinal surveys ; United States of America.
Annotation	Logistic analysis of a sample of 124,949 participants aged 70+ from the 1982 to 1996 US National Health Interview Surveys was used to estimate the trend in disability prevalence, after controlling for various socio-demographic factors. The authors found that: the prevalence of disability has declined, but the gains did not persist throughout the period or accelerate over time; only routine care disability has declined, whereas more severe personal care disability shows no improvement; estimates are robust to the exclusion of nursing home populations, but may be sensitive to growth in the assisted living population; estimates of decline in disability prevalence are fairly consistent across five national surveys; gains have been concentrated in the most educated older people; and gains in education appear to be an important confounder of the improvements. (RH).
Accession Number	CPA-010814208 A
Classmark	BN: 3J: 7T
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...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing.