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The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
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The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
Frances M. Chevarley, PhD, Center for Cost and Financing Studies, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 2101 East Jefferson St. Suite 500, Rockville, MD 20852, 301-594-6659, fchevarl@AHRQ.GOV, Margaret Nosek, PhD, Center for Research on Women with Disabilities, Baylor College of Medicine, 3440 Richmond Ave., Suite B, Houston, TX 77046, Carol J. Gill, PhD, Department of Disability and Human Development, University of Illinois at Chicago, M/C 626, 1640 W. Roosevelt Road, Chicago, IL 60608, and JoAnn Thierry, MS, MSW, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 4770 Buford Highway NE (F-35), Atlanta, GA 30341.
Disability status of women has been shown to vary according to a number of demographic factors. Our analyses is based on data from the 1994 and 1995 National health Interview Survey, a continuous nationally representative survey of the civilian non-institutionalized population. We chose “functional limitation” (FL), a measure of physical functioning and clearly operationalized in the NHIS-D, to define disability in our analysis, instead of other definitions, because we were interested primarily in the effect of limitations in physical functioning on health and well-being. According to the 1994-1995 NHIS-D, there were a total of 99,378,000 women 18 years of age or older in the U.S., of whom approximately 16% had at least one FL. By age 65, 40% of all adult women had at least one FL. Our results demonstrate a consistent positive association between age and having a FL, a finding consistent with previous analyses of the relationship between age and other various indices of disability. Furthermore, among women with 3 or more FLs, Black non-Hispanic women are over-represented compared to White non-Hispanic women and Hispanic women, suggesting that risk factors for the development of secondary conditions or more extensive disabilities are greater for Black women. Functional limitation is also associated with having lower income, less education, and lower rates of employment than those found for women with no FLs. This pattern confirms a theoretical view of women with disabilities as experiencing heightened disadvantage from multiple minority group membership. Implications for public health research and practice will be discussed.
Learning Objectives:
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.