@article {6671, title = {Measuring disability with parsimony.}, journal = {Disabil Rehabil}, volume = {21}, year = {1999}, month = {1999 May-Jun}, pages = {295-306}, publisher = {21}, abstract = {

PRIMARY OBJECTIVE: Health surveys, especially those for older persons, include numerous detailed items about disability. There has been little effort to develop a global disability item, that is, one question that covers the concept of disability briefly but well. This article discusses how parsimony can be achieved through a single item, or less desirably by reductions of detailed items.

MAIN OUTCOME AND RESULTS: Results of three analyses on the issue of compact disability indicators, using public-use data sets (AHEAD, HRS, BRFSS), are presented. The analyses study relationships of global disability to both detailed disability items and global health. Overall, the results show that a global disability item has good coverage of specific disabilities and is distinct from self-rated health.

CONCLUSIONS: Routine inclusion of a global disability item in surveys is recommended, and specific suggestions are made to aid its design.

}, keywords = {Activities of Daily Living, Disability Evaluation, Disabled Persons, Health Status Indicators, Health Surveys, Humans, Surveys and Questionnaires}, issn = {0963-8288}, doi = {10.1080/096382899297729}, url = {https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10381242}, author = {Verbrugge, Lois M. and Merrill, Susan S. and Xian Li} }