ACS: Informational Pages - Service-Connected Disability

These questions on Service-connected Disability Status and Rating were added to the ACS questionnaire in 2008.

Question 27 - Service-connected Disability

Who is asked?

Questions on military service are asked of all person ages 15 and older.

Respondents are asked question 27a if they indicated that they:

served on active duty in the U.S. Armed Forces, military Reserves or National Guard; or
trained with the Reserves or National Guard; or
were now on active duty.

Respondents are asked question 27b if they answered “ yes” to 27a.

What does it mean?

“Service-connected” means the disability was a result of disease or injury incurred or aggravated during active military service.

Service-connected disability ratings are assigned by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). Ratings are graduated according to the degree of the veteran's disability on a scale of 0 to 100 percent.

Why is this question asked?

The VA uses a priority system to allocate health care services among veterans enrolled in its programs. An enrollee's service-connected disability rating is a key factor in determining the person's eligibility and order of priority for health-care services.

The VA uses the data from this question to:

measure the demand for VA health care services in local market areas across the country;
classify veterans into priority groups for VA health care enrollment.

More information can be found in the Subject Definitions document or on the Veterans Statistics Webpage.

American Community Survey (ACS)

Informational Pages: Service-connected Disability Status and Ratings