Copyright (c) 2009 Cornell University ILR School All rights reserved. http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/edicollect Recent documents in Employment and Disability Institute Collection en-us Tue, 17 Nov 2009 07:26:53 PST 3600 http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/edicollect/1263 http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/edicollect/1263 Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:15:49 PST This User Guide contains information on the Behavioral Risk Factors Surveillance System (BRFSS). The BRFSS is a state-based system of health surveys that collects information on health risk behaviors, preventive health practices, and health care access primarily related to chronic disease and injury. The survey is conducted by the state health departments with technical and methodological assistance provided by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The BRFSS is an annual cross-sectional telephone-based survey that provides national, state, and limited county-level data. It is designed to allow the CDC, state health departments, and other health and education agencies to monitor risk behaviors related to chronic diseases, injuries and death, identify emerging health problems, establish and track health objectives, and develop and evaluate public health policies and programs. The core survey includes two questions that are used to identify the population with disabilities with other optional modules that target disability-related issues. William Erickson http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/edicollect/1262 http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/edicollect/1262 Mon, 31 Aug 2009 10:03:23 PDT The purpose of this report is to provide a review of the recent evaluation activities being conducted for a number of state and federal programs, policies, and initiatives designed to promote the employment of people with disabilities. The review is intended to provide a single source for information on the nature of the initiatives and the evaluation efforts that have been recently completed or are currently under way and the findings to date related to the effectiveness of these initiatives. This broad review is also intended to provide some evidence of the progress we are making. The report also suggests avenues where further efforts and progress might be warranted. We identified 27 initiatives or programs and their associated evaluations that represent a federally sponsored program, policy, or initiative designed specifically to improve employment of the working-age adult population with disabilities. Because of resource constraints, we did not review initiatives designed to improve the adult employment outcomes of youth with disabilities, such as the Social Security Administration (SSA) sponsored Youth Transition Demonstrations. We also did not review small-scale studies evaluating the effectiveness of specific clinical, supported employment, or vocational rehabilitation (VR) approaches. We only looked at information related to the major federal programs serving people with disabilities, general legislation and policies, and initiatives that were fairly large-scale in nature. Gina A. Livermore http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/edicollect/1261 http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/edicollect/1261 Wed, 15 Jul 2009 05:50:59 PDT Information about residents of institutional and noninstitutional group quarters (GQ), particularly those with disabilities, has been limited by gaps in survey data, and statistics based on data that exclude some or all GQ residents are biased as estimates of total population statistics. We used the 2006 and 2007 American Community Survey (ACS) to identify the distribution of working-age populations with and without disabilities by major residence type, and to assess the sensitivity of disability statistics to GQ residence. Our findings showed that (1) of those with disabilities, about one in 13 males and one in 33 females live in GQ; (2) younger males with disabilities are more likely to reside there, particularly at institutional GQ; (3) individuals with and without disabilities who are black, American Indian, never married, or have less than a high school education had higher GQ residence rates; (4) 40% of male and 62% of female GQ residents have a disability; (5) adding GQ residents to household residents increases estimated disability prevalence for males by 6% and the estimated difference between disability prevalence rates by gender nearly disappears; and (6) inclusion of the GQ population substantively lowers employment rate estimates for males with disabilities--especially young blacks and American Indians. David C. Stapleton http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/edicollect/1260 http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/edicollect/1260 Thu, 28 May 2009 07:35:45 PDT WELCOME to the inaugural issue of Working, a print and elec¬tronic newsletter produced by the New York Makes Work Pay Initiative. This Initiative is a Comprehensive Employment Ser¬vices Medicaid Infrastructure Grant funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to the New York State Office of Mental Health (OMH) and its management partners the Burton Blatt Institute (BBI) at Syra¬cuse University and the Employment and Disability Institute (EDI) at Cornell University. The New York Makes Work Pay Initiative is currently funded for calendar years 2009 and 2010 and will provide an array of services to individuals with disabilities, the agencies and advocates that serve them, and employers, helping to remove obstacles to work and pave the way to self-supporting employment. Edwin J. Lopez-Soto http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/edicollect/1259 http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/edicollect/1259 Fri, 24 Apr 2009 10:13:43 PDT Policymakers, service providers, disability advocacy groups and researchers use disability statistics for a wide variety of purposes. A common problem that these groups encounter is finding a data source, a disability definition and/or a statistical method that provides them with a disability statistic that is both relevant to their needs and useful.The mission of the Cornell StatsRRTC is to bridge the divide between the sources of disability data and the users of disability statistics. One product of this effort is a series of User Guides to national survey data sets that collect information on the disability population. The purpose of each of the User Guides is to provide disability data users with:1. An easily accessible guide to the disability information available in the nationally representative survey;2. Estimates of the population with a disability, the disability prevalence rate, and estimates of participation-related statistics;3. A description of the unique features of the dataset that will help disability statistics users determine whether the dataset can provide them with the statistic that they need; and4. A description of how the dataset compares to other national data that are used to describe the population with disabilities.This User Guide contains information on the National Assessment of Educational Programs (NAEP), also known as "the Nation's Report Card." Unlike the other data sources addressed by the User Guide Series, the NAEP focuses solely on children. As a result, the focus of this Guide will shift to the inclusion and accommodation of educational activities of children with disabilities, as opposed to adult employment and economic well-being, which are the focus of many of the other User Guides S. Antonio Ruiz-Quintanilla http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/edicollect/1258 http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/edicollect/1258 Thu, 26 Mar 2009 10:06:56 PDT State vocational rehabilitation (VR) agencies play an important role in promoting employment for people with disabilities. However, little information has been available about how many people with disabilities exit after VR service receipt and how exits vary with individual characteristics and across states compared to the general population with disabilities. We used RSA administrative data from fiscal year 2007 and public use files from the American Community Survey to calculate the ratio of the number of individuals completing VR services to the estimated number of working-age people with disabilities in 2007 at the national and state-levels and for demographic, educational, and disability subgroups. Overall, our results show that 1.3 of every 100 working-age adults with a disability living in the community exited a VR agency after receiving services, with state variation ranging from 0.6 percent in Washington and Puerto Rico to 4.0 percent in Vermont. We also found large differences in these numbers across sex, age, racial, ethnic, and educational groups--differences that are much larger in some states than in others. These observed disparities raise questions about why some groups are more likely to complete VR services than others and whether VR agencies should be systematically targeting more resources to certain groups. Further research and additional data collection strategies are needed to better understand how well people with disabilities complete VR agency services. David C. Stapleton http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/edicollect/1257 http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/edicollect/1257 Wed, 28 Jan 2009 11:02:42 PST The Annual Disability Status Reports provide policy makers, disability advocates, reporters, and the public with a summary of the most recent demographic and economic statistics on the working-age (ages 21-64) population with disabilities. They contain information on the population size, prevalence, employment, earnings, poverty, household income, home ownership, and activity limitations of working-age people with disabilities, as well as the composition of this population by age, race, gender, and educational attainment. Andrew J. Houtenville http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/edicollect/1256 http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/edicollect/1256 Wed, 28 Jan 2009 10:57:45 PST The Annual Disability Status Reports provide policy makers, disability advocates, reporters, and the public with a summary of the most recent demographic and economic statistics on the working-age (ages 21-64) population with disabilities. They contain information on the population size, prevalence, employment, earnings, poverty, household income, home ownership, and activity limitations of working-age people with disabilities, as well as the composition of this population by age, race, gender, and educational attainment. William A. Erickson http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/edicollect/1255 http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/edicollect/1255 Thu, 15 Jan 2009 09:42:58 PST In 2003, The National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR) funded a Rehabilitation Research and Training Center on Disability Demographics and Statistics (StatsRRTC) at Cornell University's Employment and Disability Institute (EDI). The goal of the Center is to ―explore the reliability of existing data sources and collection methods and evaluate ways to improve and expand current data collection efforts‖ (EDI 2008). As a collaborator with the StatsRRTC, Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. (MPR), has been working on a project that identifies the strengths and limitations in existing disability data collection in both content and data collection methodology. The intended outcomes of this project include expanding and synthesizing knowledge of best practices and the extent to which existing data use those practices, informing the development of data enhancement options, and contributing to a more informed use of existing data. Jason Markesich http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/edicollect/1254 http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/edicollect/1254 Thu, 15 Jan 2009 09:42:51 PST This progress report on the prevalence rate, employment, poverty, and household income of working-age people with disabilities (ages 21-64) uses data from the 2007 and earlier Current Population Surveys - Annual Social and Economic Supplement (CPS-ASES, a.k.a. Annual Demographic Survey, Income Supplement, and March CPS). The CPS is the only data set that provides continuously-defined yearly information on the working-age population with disabilities since 1981 Melissa J. Bjelland