Disability Statistics, What We Count and What It Tells Us

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Abstract
This paper begins with four reinterpretations about the prevalence, trends, temporality, and spread of disability. Together they lead to a different view of disability as quite pervasive in terms of sheer numbers, length of disability experience, and domains of life, as well as organ systems affected. The denial of this reality is related to our attempt to make disability "fixed" and "dichotomous," whereas it is better conceived of as "fluid" and "continuous." The costs of maintaining the former position are traced in notions of disability's "real" numbers and measurement, as well as in research, policy, and advocacy arenas. A redirection is suggested in terms of a more multidimensional approach and a purging of the inherent negative elements in current conceptions and measurement of disability.

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