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A new measure of disability used in the 2000 Census allows an expanded data set on the population with disabilities within all regions of Brazil. Using two different conceptualizations of disability including limitations in activities and impairments in body function and structure, the questions provide a richer source of information for policy issues. Initial use of the data has provided increased knowledge about the age, sex and racial makeup of the populations with disabilities and the geographic distribution of this population within Brazil.

Barbara M. Altman, a sociologist with a Ph.D. from the University of Maryland is currently a special assistant on Disability Statistics at the National Center for Health Statistics and an adjunct associate professor at the University of Maryland, College Park. She is currently involved in revision of the measures of disability in the American Community Survey and has a key role in the Washington Group, an international group seeking to develop culturally compatible measures of disability worldwide. Her disability research interests focus in three areas: disability definition and measurement in survey data; access to, financing and utilization of health care services by persons with disabilities, particularly working-age persons and women with disabilities; and disability among minority groups. She is the author of numerous articles and book chapters on disability topics, and she is currently co-editor of the series Research in Social Science and Disability.