2013 StatsRRTC Projects

• R1–Evaluating the 6 Question Sequence

  Project Lead: Andrew Houtenville (UNH)

  Purpose: To identify strategies to improve the 6QS.
  Hypothesis: Disability prevalence statistics are inconsistent across major data sources.
  Data/sample: Working-age sample from ACS, Current Population Survey (CPS), Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS), National Health Interview Survey (NHIS), and Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP).
  Analysis/outcomes: Descriptive and multivariate statistical techniques to compare differences in the health and demographic characteristics for those identified by the 6Qs across data sources; findings will allow researchers to understand variations in 6QS response that are reported in official estimates.

• R2–Comprehensive Taxonomy of Employment Supports and Services

  Project Lead: Vidya Sundar (UNH)

  Purpose: To develop a Comprehensive Taxonomy for Employment Supports and Services (CoTESS), a new approach to collect information on VR employment services.
  Hypothesis: VR administrative data collection methods can be improved by applying principles of psychometric testing.
  Data/sample: Data collected through literature reviews, focus groups, a Delphi study of experts, and a field test.
  Analysis/outcomes: Qualitative approaches to observe current VR employment supports and services which will be validated through cognitive and field testing; findings inform administrative measurement of VR services.

  Resource: http://vocational-rehab.com/

• R3–Longitudinal Data Needs

  Project Lead: Todd Honeycutt (MPR)

  Purpose: To track changes in disability self-report for young adults.
  Hypothesis: The rate of change in disability status is partially a function of the time between disability data collection points.
  Data/sample: Multiple waves of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 (NLSY97).
  Analysis/outcomes: Descriptive and multivariate analysis to assess changes in self-reported disability status and associations of changes with other factors; findings will inform the understanding of changes in disability status.

  Published: Mann, David R., and Todd Honeycutt. “Understanding the Disability Dynamics of Youth: Health Condition and Limitation Changes for Youth and Their Influence on Longitudinal Survey Attrition.” Demography, vol. 53, no. 3, 2016, pp. 749-776.
  https://link-springer-com.libproxy.unh.edu/article/10.1007%2Fs13524-016-0469-7

• R6–Federal Expenditures

  Project Lead: Gina Livermore (MPR)

  Purpose: To track recent changes in federal and state spending on the working-age population with disabilities, and extend that research to include children with disabilities.
  Hypothesis: Federal expenditures to assist adults with disabilities grew at a faster rate between fiscal year (FY) 2008 and FY 2014 relative to similar expenditures from FY 2002 through FY 2008.
  Data/sample: Published administrative statistics for approximately 60 programs.
  Analysis/outcomes: Estimates of federal and selected state expenditures on programs that support children and working-age adults with disabilities in FY 2014 and changes over time; findings inform general policy debates around the amount of spending for people with disabilities.

• R7–New Details

  Project Lead: Debra Brucker (UNH)

  Purpose: To identify specific disparities that exist between persons with and without disabilities and among persons with different disability types in three areas: (1) employment and economic self-sufficiency, (2) community living and participation, and (3) health and function.
  Hypothesis: Various disparities between those with and without disabilities are larger now than when they were last measured, before the most recent recession.
  Data/sample: People with and without disabilities in four public-use surveys American Housing Survey (AHS), CPS, National Household Travel Survey (NHTS), and SIPP.
  Analysis/outcomes: Descriptive and multivariate statistics; findings will provide new evidence about disparities in employment and economic self-sufficiency, community living and participation, and health and function between people with and without disabilities.

  Brucker, D.L., Helms, V. & Souza, T. (2017). Health and health care access among adults with disabilities who receive federal housing assistance. Housing Policy Debate (Published online August 2017). DOI: 10.1080/10511482.2017.1357048.

  Brucker, D.L. & Helms, V. (2017). Measuring disability. Cityscape: A Journal of Policy Development and Research, 19, 7, 257-266. July 2017.

  Brucker DL & Rollins NG (2016). Trips to medical care among persons with disabilities: Evidence from the 2009 National Household Travel Survey, Disability and Health Journal, doi:10.1016/j.dhjo.2016.01.001

  Mitra, S. & Brucker, D.L. (2016). Income poverty and multiple deprivations in a high-income country: The case of the United States. Social Science Quarterly. In press. DOI: 10.1111/ssqu.12291

  Brucker, D.L. & Scally , C. (2015). Linking public housing, employment and disability benefits for working-age persons with disabilities. Housing & Society, 42(2): 126-147. DOI: 10.1080/08882746.2015.1076130.

  Brucker, D.L. (2015). Perceptions, behaviors and satisfaction related to public safety for persons with disabilities in the United States. Criminal Justice Review, 40(4): 431-448. DOI:10.1177/0734-16815584997.

  Brucker, D.L., Mitra, S., Chaitoo, N., & Mauro, J. (2015). More likely to be poor whatever the measure: Working-age persons with disabilities in the United States. Social Science Quarterly, 96(1): 273-296. DOI: 10.1111/ssqu.12098.

  Brucker, D.L., Houtenville, A.J. & Lauer, E.A. (2015). Using sensory, functional and activity limitation data to estimate employment outcomes for working-age persons with disabilities in the U.S. Journal of Disability Policy Studies. DOI: 10.1177/1044207315578949.

• R9–Tracking SSDI Participation

  Project Lead: Yonatan Ben-Shalom (MPR)

  Purpose: To explore the extent to which growth in SSDI is due to individuals entering the rolls at progressively younger ages and staying on the program for progressively longer periods.
  Hypothesis: The percentage of each cohort that enters by each age has grown substantially from 1956 (the program’s first year) to 2012, with few exceptions.
  Data/sample: SSA administrative data on SSDI beneficiaries combined with U.S. Census Bureau population estimates.
  Analysis/outcomes: Descriptive and multivariate statistics, along with state-of-the-art dynamic data visualization techniques; findings will show reasons for growth in SSDI due to policy, economic, and other changes.

  Status: Forthcoming 

  Lifetime Receipt of SSDI Benefits: Are More Recent Birth Cohorts Entering Sooner and Receiving Benefits Longer? Yonatan Ben-Shalom, David Stapleton, Alex Bryce

  We provide the first publicly available statistics on the extent to which recent successive birth cohorts—those born from 1955 through 1994—enter SSDI during their lifetimes, and trends in the duration of benefit receipt among beneficiaries of a given age. Because we focus on cross-cohort numbers instead of cross-sectional statistics, the statistics are not influenced by the aging of the working-age population. We find that lifetime receipt of SSDI benefits—and, by extension, Medicare benefits—is increasing with successive birth cohorts. The percentage of those who entered SSDI as of a given age grew for those born in the two decades from 1955 through 1974—the birth cohorts we observe the longest—and that trend continues for those born later, at least over the ages observed. We observe growth for both men and women, and find much more rapid growth for women because of the increase in female labor force participation since the 1950s. We also find that mean years of lifetime SSDI benefit receipt (and again, Medicare, by extension) has grown even more rapidly, and that is due to the combined effects of entry at younger ages and lower mortality after entry. Our findings account for a factor that is often ignored in discussions about growth in the SSDI rolls: immigration. It is important to recognize the role of immigration in determining trends in SSDI entry because if immigrants enter SSDI at a different rate than U.S. born age peers, trends in SSDI entry for birth cohorts are confounded by trends in immigration, further complicating our understanding of the reasons behind them

• R8–The Disability Belt and Local Variation

  Project Lead: Andrew Houtenville (UNH)

  Purpose: To compare the geographic variation in disability prevalence, focusing on the “disability belt” (which stretches from Appalachia into the lower Mississippi Valley).
  Hypothesis: The impacts of demographic characteristics on disability prevalence and key outcomes are consistent across disability type, outcomes, and data sources.
  Data/sample: County-level information from the BRFSS, five-year pooled ACS and published SSA records, and Census tract-level data from the five-year pooled ACS.
  Analysis/outcomes: Spatial statistical analyses to compare the geographic variation in disability prevalence as measured by different data sources and across disability types, and empirically define the boundaries of the disability belt; findings will provide program planners at the state and local level with information to accurately target resources and services.

• R10–VR Services and Employment

  Project Lead: Todd Honeycutt (MPR)

  Purpose: To estimate the relationship of VR on employment and earnings for SSA beneficiaries.
  Hypothesis: In the short term, applying for VR will have a modest, positive effect on the earnings of beneficiaries, but these effects will erode in the long term.
  Data/sample: SSA administrative data matched to Rehabilitation Services Administration (RSA) records identifying SSA beneficiaries who apply for VR services.
  Analysis/outcomes: Descriptive and multivariate statistics; findings will show the dollar effect of VR on earnings.
  Status: Forthcoming in the Journal of Vocational Rehabilitation
  Mann, David R., Todd Honeycutt, Michelle Stegman Bailey, and John O’Neill. “Using Administrative Data to Explore the Employment and Benefit Receipt Outcomes of Vocational Rehabilitation Applicants Years after Program Exit.” Journal of Vocational Rehabilitation, forthcoming.
  
  

• R11–Preparing for Transition

  Project Lead: Stephen Lipscomb (MPR)

  Purpose: To describe changes between two cohorts of youth with disabilities and their parents during their transition experiences.
  Hypothesis: Youth with disabilities accessed more experiences and supports in 2012–2013 than in 2001.
  Data/sample: Youth with disabilities and their parents who participated in the National Longitudinal Transition Study (NLTS) 2012 and a similar cohort in 2001 who participated in the NLTS2.
  Analysis/outcomes: Descriptive and multivariate statistics; findings will provide information about whether youth with disabilities today may be better prepared to make their post-high school transitions than similar youth in 2001.

• R12–Child SSI Enrollment

  Project Lead: David Wittenburg (MPR)

  Purpose: To explore how enrollment in the child SSI program has changed over time and across states by investigating the interaction between total child SSI caseloads, new allowances, and the potential number of eligible children, by state, over the 25 years from 1986 to 2011.
  Hypothesis: Enrollment in the child SSI program varies across states in both enrollment levels and trends.
  Data/sample: Data on children ages birth to 17 from the CPS, National Survey of Children’s Health (NSCH), and SSA administrative data.
  Analysis/outcomes: Descriptive and multivariate statistics; findings will provide important information on the changing nature of the child SSI program in the safety net at the state level of programs that serve youth with disabilities.

• R13–Internet Survey Panel

  Project Lead: Jesse Chandler (Mathematica)

  Purpose: To create a pilot internet panel of Survey of Disability and Employment (SDE) respondents that would be followed in future surveys to address technical questions concerning the use of web-based methodology for VR applicants, as well as the broader population of working-age people with disabilities.

  Publication: Forthcoming

  Abstract
  BACKGROUND: Web surveys enable fast and cost-effective data collection. People with disabilities lack Internet access, however, impacting the quality of data collected from them relative to people without disabilities.

  OBJECTIVE: We evaluate the quality of data collected through online surveys from vocational rehabilitation (VR) applicants and the feasibility of enabling online survey completion by providing equipment to people without Internet access.

  METHODS: We recruited a sample of 210 VR applicants into the study, stratified by level of Internet access. We then conducted each of two 30-minute surveys online and then by phone.

  RESULTS: The combined sample of web and telephone respondents resembled the VR population as a whole: online respondents alone did not. Reported experiences with the VR application process also differed between those who completed the surveys online and by phone. People with limited Internet access were less likely to complete the survey than those with Internet at home or those provided with computing equipment and Internet access.

  CONCLUSIONS: Internet access boosts response rates suggesting that offering multiple modes to complete a survey improves response rates. Providing equipment to those who lack it is beneficial but costly. Web-only surveys do not reflect the VR applicant population as a whole.