A new report posted to the HUD User website entitled “Disability Variables in the American Housing Survey (AHS)” examines the six questions added to the AHS in the 2009 survey which were taken from the American Community Survey (ACS). The report notes that the AHS shows substantially lower incidence of persons and households with disabilities than the ACS. Part of the reason for this may be differences in the way AHS and ACS administer the surveys and the fact that ACS imputes missing values, while AHS does not. The report also shows that the incidence of disability is higher among households living in mobile homes, non-metropolitan areas, and older units and that the incidence of disability increases monotonically as severity of rent burden increases. The report corroborates how disability limits the income earning of any household, especially one-member households who represent one third of all households with disabilities. On the positive side, the report confirms that people with disabilities are more likely to live in assisted housing. It provides guidance as to which source of disability data research should use, depending on his or her objective.
Click here to read the report.
