One of the more difficult pieces of data to get access to over the years has been data on disabilities. To begin with, disability information is typically self-reported, as opposed to agency or service identified. Second, there just hasn't been a good source for this information down to the local level - until recently with the advent of the American Communities Survey.
Below are three graphs. The first is a simply pie chart showing how around one out of every eight citizens (13%) regionally claim to have a disability.
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Next, the bar chart below shows the number of disabilities claimed within six classifications. Some of the almost 32,000 people regionally that indicated that they have a disability may, in fact, have claimed several different disabilities, so the total number of disabilities shown below is naturally higher than the total number of people claiming to be disabled.
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And the last bar chart is similar to the one above, but in his case it focuses on the elderly, those age 65 or older. I offer it as an example of how the data might be looked at further. Hopefully such a look will come with input from those that find the data particularly useful!
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