34 years after passage of Americans with Disabilities Act, data sheds light on the disabled

Thursday marks 34 years since President George H.W. Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act guaranteeing equal protection for people with disabilities.

Modeled after the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the ADA provides equal access to government services, schools, buildings, private employers and commercial facilities. But some disability rights activists say the law doesn't go far enough to protect those living with disabilities.

"One in four adults in the U.S. report having a disability, according to the latest data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That's over 70 million Americans.

"It’s important to remember disability is not a health outcome," the CDC said in a recent news release. "It is part of the way people experience life, such as hearing, seeing, moving, processing information, and caring for oneself."

Here's what the latest data shows about Americans with disabilities:

One in four adults has a disability

A disability is defined as a physical condition or mental impairment that increases the difficulty for the person with condition to do certain activities and interact with the world around them, according to the CDC. There are several types of disabilities that could affect a person's vision, movement, memory, learning, communication, hearing, mental health or social relationships.

According to the World Health Organization, disabilities have three dimensions. Disabilities could cause impairment, an activity limitation or participation restriction. An impairment may look like loss of hearing, while an activity limitation could manifest as difficulty walking. Participation restrictions can limit a person's involvement in social activities or other life events.

Who is living with a disability?

The most recent data shows that adults 65 years and older had a higher disability prevalence compared to younger generations, with 43.9% of the older age group reporting being disabled.

People identifying as American Indian or Alaska Native and those identifying as multiracial or "other" had the highest prevalence of disabilities among all races and ethnicities. Both groups reported a disability prevalence of 38.7%.

Healthcare access, recognition challenges for the disabled

Americans living with disabilities face barriers to health care access. The CDC found that one in four disabled adults ages 18 to 44 do not have a usual health care provider. Another 25% of adults in that same age group reported having an unmet health care needs because of cost in the past year.

Nearly 17% of adults with disabilities ages 45 to 64 reported that they did not have a routine check-up in the past year.

Earlier this year, the U.S. Census Bureau halted a controversial proposal that would have changed how it counts people with disabilities. Disability rights advocates argued that the change would decrease the estimated share of the U.S. population with any disability by around 40%, from 13.9% of the country to 8.1%, NPR previously reported.

That would have been problematic, the advocates argued, because it could have created more barriers for disabled people to obtain services and access resources.

Legacy of the Americans with Disabilities Act

The ADA guarantees people equal access to public spaces such as school buildings, restaurants, hotels, movie theaters, health facilities and stores. Building design has changed over the decades since the passage of the act to incorporate ramps, wider doorways and elevators.

Michael Ashley Stein, co-founder and executive director of the Harvard Law School Project on Disability, previously told USA TODAY that we are in a much better place compared to 1990 when the ADA was passed.

While the ADA has made a significant difference in bringing accessibility to those with disabilities, it hasn't removed all prejudice against people with disabilities

“Other than rare instances of overt animus, most of the discrimination we see towards people with disabilities in this country tends to be from what we call ‘malign neglect,’” Stein told USA TODAY. "It's not that we're trying to exclude them from opportunity, it's that we didn't even bother to consider them eligible or worthy of opportunities."

The ADA, like other civil rights laws, Stein said, "puts the burden on the oppressed to make changes," requiring an endless fight to protect those rights.

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Contributing: Karen Weintraub and Jayne O'Donnell

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 34 years after passage of Americans with Disabilities Act, data sheds light on the disabled