Adults with disabilities: Quality and access to care

We consider the 2007 National Healthcare Disparities Report (NHDR) as a landmark issue in that it includes more information about individuals with disabilities than in previous years reports and includes a newly developed measure of disability.

The measure used in the NHDR is based on the work of an inter-agency subgroup of the National Healthcare Quality and Disparities Reports (NHQR/NHDR) committee who recommended using paired measures in displaying disability data to preserve the qualitative aspects of the data: Limitations in basic activities represents problems with mobility and other basic functioning at the person level; and Limitations in complex activities represent limitations encountered when the person, in interaction with the environment, attempts to participate in community life. These two categories are not mutually exclusive; persons may have both limitations in basic activities and limitations in complex activities. The 2007 NHDR uses these disability measures with the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS). Future reports are to include additional data sources of adults with these disability measures.

The 2007 NHDR includes MEPS data on quality of and access to care for adults with disabilities using these paired disability measures. Findings include: Adults with basic and complex activity limitations were significantly more likely than persons with neither limitation to be unable to receive or to delay receiving needed medical care, dental care, or prescription medicines; adults ages 65 and over with basic and complex activity limitations were significantly more likely than persons with neither limitation to have used 1 of 33 inappropriate medications.