ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the series of propositions that has a dual purpose. Propositions are inferences or generalizations from the findings of numerous empirical studies and attempt to state stable associations among variables. Statements about a concept, based on an examination and analysis of studies conducted by various methods in diverse populations, have implications in respect to attempts to develop social indicators. Social disability has been considered as a central concept in the discussion of such indicators. Several community health surveys published during the 1950s employed both a household interview and a medical examination but found the interview survey an unsatisfactory method of estimating clinical chronic disease. Type of chronic condition was an insufficient predictor of severity of work disability when various social and demographic factors were controlled. The relationship between age and social disability independent of biological and physical condition emerges clearly in an analysis of Social Security Survey of the Disabled data.
