Duration of Disabling Acute Illness among Employed Males and Females: Eastern Health District of Baltimore, 1938-1943

Abstract

HT HE dependence of many individuals on earnings from employment gives importance to the risk of interruptions of such earnings because of disabling illness. For many years commercial insurance companies and cooperative groups, such as mutual benefit associations, have provided protection for this risk to limited groups of individuals (25, 28). The governments of a number of countries have also established compulsory disability insurance programs (11, 22). Recently many individuals have proposed a federal compulsory disability insurance program for the United States. In the past decade, several states have adopted compulsory temporary disability benefit plans (1, 24). Under disability insurance programs, protection is provided for temporary or permanent disability or both. The definition of disability and the period during which benefits are provided differ under separate plans. Temporary disability is often defined as inability to perform the usual occupation; permanent disability may be defined as inability to undertake work providing economic and social status reasonably similar to that to which the worker is accustomed (30). Temporary disability protection commonly begins after a short waiting period following the onset of each illness, such as three or seven days. It is often furnished for only a limited period, such as twenty-six or thirteen weeks. Permanent disability coverage begins at the end of the temporary disability benefit period and continues indefinitely (11, 12, 22, 24). The growth of disability insurance plans presents a need for special statistics on the amount of disability in employed 1 From the Milbank Memorial Fund. The study of illness in the Eastern Health District of Baltimore was conducted by the United States Public Health Service and the Milbank Memorial Fund.