Visual Impairments: Determining Eligibility for Social Security Benefits

TABLE A-10 Comparison with Results from Other Study of Vision-Related Conditions and Labor Market Attachment
Descriptions	Study of Vision-Related Conditions and Labor Market Attachment
	This Study				Trupin et al. (1997)		Kirchner et al. (1999)
Dataset	National Health Interview Survey				National Health Interview Survey		National Health Interview Survey on Disability, Phase I
Time period	Pooled over 1983-96				Pooled over 1983-94^a		Pooled over 1994-95
Age group	Aged 25 to 61				Aged 18 to 64		Aged 18 to 54
Measure of labor market attachment^b	Have a job in the previous two weeks				Have a job or looking for work in the previous two weeks		Have a job in the previous two weeks
Secondary restrictions	Random Sample^c		Choice-Based Sample^c		Condition is the Main Cause of Work and/or Activity Limitations^d		None
Measures of vision- related conditions	Blind In Both Eyes	Other Visual Impairments	Blind In Both Eyes	Other Visual Impairments	Blind In Both Eyes	Other Visual Impairments	Serious Visual Impairment Even When Wearing Glasses^e
Percentage attached to the labor market	39.5	73.1	28.2	49.8	30.1	61.0	59.0
^{a Trupin et al. (1997) report annual estimates from 1983-1994. The pooled results below are my calculations using their annual estimates. ^{b All three studies are based on the same set of questions. Trupin et al. (1997) include those who are looking for work but mention similar estimates are obtained when excluding those who are looking for work. ^{c In the NHIS, conditions are determined in two ways. First, participants receive one of six condition lists that ask them if they have a specific condition (see Table 1). Second, participants are asked broad questions to reveal general health and functioning (see Table 2, top panel), if participants reveal they have health or functioning difficulties, they are then asked what conditions cause these difficulties (see Table 2, bottom panel). This method misses those with conditions who have no such difficulties, while his first method captures those with conditions that have no health or functioning difficulties. So only one-sixth of the sample is directly asked about blindness. This one-sixth of the sample is a random sample because being asked about blindness is not dependent one's response to another question. The remaining five-sixths of the sample is choice-based because revealing blindness is dependent one's response (choice) to another question. ^{d Trupin et al. (1997) restrict their sample to only those who report blindness as the main source of work and/or activity limitation, which is a subset of the prompting questions referred to in Table A-2. This allows them to disregard the distinction between recipients and nonrecipients of List #2, yet they ignore those with conditions who are not limited.}}}e In Kirchner et al. (1999) individuals are considered to have a "serious visual impairment" if they have "SERIOUS difficulty seeing even when wearing glasses or contact lenses" and then identify themselves as "legally blind" or expect themselves "to have SERIOUS difficulty seeing, for at least the next 12 months."}

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