Obesity, smoking, physical labor may explain disability disparities in U.S.: study

CHICAGO, Sept. 1 (Xinhua) -- Excess body mass, smoking and manual labor may explain a large proportion of disability disparities in the United States, according to a study posted on the website of the University of Michigan (UM) on Monday.

The researchers followed more than 3,000 individuals at risk for disability from 2003 to 2015 by using data from the nationally representative Panel Study of Income Dynamics, the longest running longitudinal household survey in the world, housed at the UM Institute for Social Research.