This article was prepared initially for an international conference of social security program administrators and researchers. They examined the reasons for, and implications of, a recent trend in several European countries toward making it easier to qualify for retirement or disability benefits as a way of alleviating long-term unemployment. The article notes that the United States has not fol...

BACKGROUND Sickness absence with cash benefits from the sickness insurance gives an opportunity to be relieved from work without losing financial security. There are, however, downsides to taking sickness absence. Periods of sickness absence, even short ones, can increase the risk for future spells of sickness absence and unemployment. The sickness period may in itself have a detrimental effect...

BACKGROUND Simple global self-ratings of health (SRH) have become increasingly used in national and international public health monitoring, and in recent decades recommended as a standard part of health surveys. Monitoring developments in population health requires identification and use of health measures, valid in relation to targets for population health. The aim of the present study was to ...

BACKGROUND This study explored the association of unemployment and an increased risk of receiving disability pension, and the possibility that this risk is attributed to municipality-specific characteristics. METHODS A cohort of 7,985 40-42 year olds was followed for 18 years in national registers, identifying new episodes of unemployment and cases of disability pension. The association betwe...

PURPOSE This study determined whether returning to the community from a recent hospitalization with unmet activities of daily living (ADL) need was associated with probability of readmission. METHODS A total of 584 respondents to the 1994, 1999, and/or 2004 National Long-Term Care Surveys (NLTCS) who were hospitalized within 90 days prior to the interview and reported ADL disability at the ti...

N AN mA when the economic seI curity of individuals and of families is recognized as of great national importance, any threat to that security merits detailed study. For this reason, information on the extent of disability in the United States and on the characteristics of the disabled assumes major significance-both as an aid in evaluating the economic implications of disability and as an inde...

BACKGROUND Twenty-two years after the promulgation of a plethora of progressive health policies since 1994, the South African public health system reflects a number of stumbling blocks regarding implementation. Rehabilitation professionals are not sufficiently equipped nor allowed the opportunity to comprehensively implement Primary Healthcare (PHC) from a bottom-up approach, thus engaging comm...

The lower level of school quality available for blacks relative to whites in the segregated era is frequently cited as a primary cause for the currently observed gap in black-white average wages. The inferior education provided to black children is argued to have caused lower levels of human capital production in black schools than white schools The gap in black-white wages can be traced to thi...

Social Security Disability Determinations Service (DDS) claimants are seeking compensation for an inability to work (Chafetz, 2010). These usually low-functioning claimants fail Symptom Validity Tests (SVTs) at high rates (Chafetz, 2008), typically over 40%. In contrast, claimants for the Rehabilitation Service in Louisiana (LRS) are seeking to work. Individuals referred by the Department of Ch...