The incidence of disabilities in the United States

Data from the Census Bureau and other sources are reviewed, reconciled, and extrapolated to 1990 to provide a consistent view of the incidence of disabilities in the United States. Four major categories of disabilities are considered: sensory, motor, cognitive, and illiteracy. About a third of the population is affected to some extent by handicaps of these types. Severe impairments from sensory, motor, and cognitive disabilities affect about 15% of the population; severely limited literacy affects another 7%. With the number of disabled people so large and the human and economic impact so great, considerable national attention has been focused on the problem of increasing employment of the disabled. The human factors community can and should make a major contribution to this effort.