Digest of Data on Persons with Disabilities

		 Digest of Data on Persons with Disabilities
				      
				Prepared by:
				      
			       Robert C. Ficke
				      
		       Science Management Corporation
			 6401 Golden Triangle Drive
			  Greenbelt, Maryland 20770
				      
			U.S. Department of Education
			 Contract Number MR890210-03
	National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research
			   Washington, D.C. 20202
				      
				January 1992
				      
			   *** ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ***

By design, this document draws from many sources of published data and
narrative explanations issued by federal statistical agencies and other
sources on the subject of disability.  Many authors of these publications
gave freely of their time to help identify the most relevant information for
the Digest, and this document benefits immeasurably from the support of these
individuals.  In particular, Gerry Hendershot, John Gary Collins, Peter Ries,
and Joan Van Nostrand of the National Center for Health Statistics helped
select from among the myriad of National Health Interview Survey and National
Nursing Home Survey data and reconcile the variations in disability measures
these and other sources provide.  John McNeil of the U.S. Census Bureau
assembled the latest published statistics from the Survey of Income and
Program Participation and the Current Population Survey, covering many
aspects of disability, especially related to work.  Conceptual guidance,
data, and the benefit of review were provided by Mitchell LaPlante, who
directs the disability statistics program at the University of California,
San Francisco.  The references for the introduction, tables, and the
highlights and explanatory notes accompanying each table are further
acknowledgement of the considerable contribution made by the many researchers
and writers in the field of disability statistics.  Charlene Cloey, Sharon
Jones, and Jaci Weller worked diligently, devoting many hours to the
preparation of the manuscript.  Finally, Sean Sweeney, the project officer
from the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research
(NIDRR), provided the initiative and guidance essential for the development
of this publication.  Following Department of Education specifications for
this document, three previous NIDRR publications served as format models.
These were the 1984 version of the Digest by the same title, Data on
Disability from the National Health Interview Survey, 1983-1985, and the
Chartbook on Disability in the United States.

Suggested Citation:

Ficke, Robert C., Digest of Data on Persons with Disabilities.
Washington, D.C.: National Institute on Disability and
Rehabilitation Research, 1991.



Note:  The Digest has been extensively reorganized and reformatted to conform 
with  constraints of the gopher server. As a result, reference to page numbers
have been removed. Many sections have been subdivided for easier access.

Apologies to the original authors and editors for having to reformat most
figures and tables.