The National Study of Health and Activity is a population survey of disability in the United States. The presence of a disability is a fairly rare event with estimates ranging from 3% to 12% of the population. A large number of persons must be screened in order to identify a national sample of persons with disabilities. An efficient way to conduct this screening is to interview a household (HH) reporter about themselves and all other household members. However, research shows that this type of proxy response to survey questions differ from self-report. The ability of a HH reporter to provide accurate information on other members of the household needs to be investigated to determine if screening at the household level is an effective way of determining disability classification. The purpose of this paper is to compare the answers given by a HH reporter in a Screener to those given by the individual himself/herself in a follow-up Interview. Persons who reported for themselves in both the Screener and the Interview serve as the control group for these analyses. The disability classification algorithm was applied to data from both sources and the discrepancies were identified and discussed. While there were differences in item response, there was no significant difference in the disability classification of persons who answered for themselves in the Screener as compared to persons who had a different person answer the Screener questions about them. Therefore, screening for disability using a HH reporter is a viable option.
Learning Objectives: 1. Recognize the issues associated with creating a national sample of persons with disabilities. 2. Identify the issues related to data obtained from a proxy versus a self-report. 3. Discuss the implications of the findings on screening for disability.
Keywords: Disability, Screening
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: This project was funded by the Social Security Administration and conducted by Westat.
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.