Improving Data on America's Aging Population

The Committee on National Statistics and the Committee on Population, at the request of the NIA, convened a workshop in March 1996 to discuss data on the aging population that address the emerging and important social, economic, and health conditions of the older population. The purposes of the workshop were to identify how the population at older ages in the next few decades will differ from the older population today, to understand the underlying causes of those changes, to anticipate future problems and policy issues, and to suggest future needs for data for research in these areas. The scope of the workshop was broader than that of the 1988 CNSTAT report, including not only data on health and long-term care, but also actuarial, economic, demographic, housing, and epidemiological data needs for informing public policy.

Table of Contents

• FRONT MATTER
• 1 INTRODUCTION
• 2 AMERICA'S AGING POPULATION: TRENDS AND UNCERTAINITIES
• 3 IMPROVING DATA SOURCES
• CONCLUSIONS
• REFERENCES
• APPENDIX A: AGENDA, WORKSHOP ON PRIORITIES FOR DATA ON THE AGING POPULATION
• APPENDIX B: DATA SOURCES FRO STUDYING AGING: SURVEY CHARACTERISTICS AND LINKAGE CAPACITIES
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