• Abigail C Mulcahy, Diana J Govier, Claire T Than, Neetu Chawla, Elisheva Danan, Elizabeth R Hooker, Holly McCready, Katherine J Hoggatt, Elizabeth M Yano, and Denise M Hynes.
• Center to Improve Veteran Involvement in Care (CIVIC), VA Portland Health Care System, Portland, OR, United States of America; Oregon Health and Sciences University/Portland State University School of Public Health, United States of America.
• Prev Med. 2024 Aug 1; 185: 108051108051.

BackgroundCurrent measures of condition-specific disabilities or those capturing only severe limitations may underestimate disability prevalence, including among Veterans.ObjectivesTo develop a comprehensive measure to characterize and compare disabilities among US Veterans and non-Veterans.MethodsUsing 2015-2018 pooled cross-sectional National Health Interview Survey data, we compared the frequency and survey-weighted prevalence of non-mutually exclusive sensory, social, and physical disabilities by Veteran status. We developed a measure for and examined the frequency and survey-weighted prevalence of eight mutually exclusive disability categories-sensory only; physical only; social only; sensory and physical; social and sensory; physical and social; and sensory, social, and physical.ResultsAmong 118,818 NHIS respondents, 11,943 were Veterans. Veterans had a greater prevalence than non-Veterans of non-mutually exclusive physical [52.01% vs. 34.68% (p < 0.001)], sensory [44.47% vs. 21.79% (p < 0.001)], and social [17.20% vs. 11.61% (p < 0.001)] disabilities (after survey-weighting). The most frequently reported mutually exclusive disability categories for both Veterans and non-Veterans were sensory and physical (19.20% and 8.02%, p < 0.001) and physical only (16.24% and 15.69%, p = 0.216) (after survey-weighting). The least frequently reported mutually exclusive disability categories for both Veterans and non-Veterans were social only (0.31% and 0.44%, p = 0.136) and sensory and social (0.32% and 0.20%, respectively, 0.026) (after survey-weighting).ConclusionsOur disability metric demonstrates that Veterans have a higher disability prevalence than non-Veterans, and a higher prevalence than previously reported. Public policy and future research should consider this broader definition of disability to more fully account for the variable needs of people with disabilities.Copyright © 2024. Published by Elsevier Inc.

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