ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a social-demographic profile of the large segment of American society that is sparking all this interest. That segment is a population in flux. People with disabilities have a longer way to go, and there is less consensus on specific goals of terminology. The majority of people with disabilities are older, most are women, most are not working, their incomes are low, their educational level is lower than the national average of high school graduation, and most are married. Medical problems precede long-term disabilities, but it is a mistake to count medical conditions as if they were a measure of disability. Indeed, the very idea of rehabilitation engineering requires that we be able to distinguish between impairments and disabilities. The chapter describes the major agencies that collect national data about people with impairments, disabilities, and handicaps. The Social Security Administration questionnaire permits analysis of the crucial interplay between specific disabilities and tasks required by the respondent's job.
