Racial Differences in Disability Using the 2003 Joint Canada/United States Survey of Health: A Cross-National Comparison

Edward Ng, Statistics Canada
Barbara Altman, National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), CDC
Jean-Marie Berthelot, Statistics Canada

Racial disparity in disability is an increasing concern in the U.S., but not in Canada. Given the recent debates on the role of socioeconomic status in explaining racial/ethnic disparities in health outcome, our objective here is to use the 2002/2003 Joint Canada/US Survey of Health (JCUSH) to examine within each country the role of potential confounders such as socioeconomic status and other health-related factors in the relationship between race and disability, based on the Health Utilities Index, supplemented by the 2003 Canadian Community Health Survey. We use logistic regression to unpack the contribution of income, education, chronic disease, obesity and, for the U.S. only, health insurance status in the racial disparity. Preliminary analysis for the U.S. shows that after controlling for SES, the initial relationship between race and disability disappeared (the Black included) except for the Natives and those having multiple ethnicities. Similar analysis will also be conducted for Canada.