The Society Security disability program faces urgent challenges: more people receiving benefits than ever before, the prospect of even more claimants as baby boomers age, changing attitudes culminating in the Americans With Disabilities Act. Disability is now understood as a dynamic process, and Social Security must comprehend that process to plan adequately for the times ahead. The Dynamics of Disability provides expert analysis and recommendations in key areas:




Understanding the current social, economic, and physical environmental factors in determining eligibility for disability benefits.
Developing and implementing a monitoring system to measure and track trends in work disability.
Improving the process for making decisions on disability claims.
Building Social Security's capacity for conducting needed research.


This book provides a wealth of detail on the workings of the Social Security disability program, recent and emerging disability trends, issues and previous experience in researching disability, and more. It will be of primary interest to federal policy makers, the Congress, and researchers—and it will be useful to state disability officials, medical and rehabilitation professionals, and the disability community.

Table of Contents


Front Matter
Summary
1 Introduction
2 Dynamics of SSA's Disability Programs
3 Conceptual Issues in Defining Work Disability
4 Survey Measurement of Disability
5 A Work Disability Monitoring System
6 Improving the Disability Decision Process
7 Enhancing SSA's Research Capacity
References
Acronyms and Abbreviations
Appendix A Committee Meetings and Presenters of Testimony
Appendix B Workshop Agendas and Presenters
Appendix C Committee Recommendations
Biographical Sketches of Committee Members
Conceptual Issues in the Measurement of Work Disability
Methodological Issues in the Measurement of Work Disability
SSA's Disability Determination of Mental Impairments: A Review Toward an Agenda for Research
Survey Design Options for the Measurement of Persons with Work Disabilities
Persons with Disabilities and Demands of the Contemporary Labor Market
Index