The ongoing debates about the future of social insurance programs such as Social Security and Medicare raise questions about the public's knowledge of the history of social insurance and about the impact these programs have on millions of Americans. In general, public conversations about social policies in the U.S. tend to focus on whether or not…

Purpose: To understand the driving behavior of older adults, this study examines self-reported reasons for driving limitation or avoidance. Design and Methods: Baseline interviews were conducted (n = 2,046) as part of a community-based study of aging and physical performance in persons aged 55 years or older in Sonoma, California. Twenty-one…

Purpose: This study examined the association among caregiver labor force participation, employees' caregiving activities, and the amount and quality of care received by care recipients. Design and Methods: Telephone interviews were conducted with 478 adults who were employed full time and 705 nonemployed adults who provided care to a family member…

Obtained data from study conducted in five California jails to examine mental health needs of jail inmates (N=940). Of the 64 inmates over age 50, 14 were determined to be mature mentally ill offenders. Data suggest that mature mentally ill offenders are predominantly White, unmarried, alcohol dependent, have less than 12 years of formal…

A unique program in California involved the community and senior citizens in reconstructing the early history of the school district and setting up a permanent historic exhibit. (MD)

Statistical and legal analysis of California nursing home admission agreements indicated that agreements limited autonomy of nursing home residents in important ways, including constraints on resident's right to make health care decisions and other basic personal choices, entitlement to due process or grievance procedures, and right to informed…

Using data gathered from Chinese, Japanese, and Korean Americans and their elderly parents (N=628), this research finds that such financial and structural factors as an adult child's income and his/her parent's need for assistance significantly influenced the frequency of an adult child's support for his/her parents. (Author/MKA)

Describes an intergenerational service program designed to use the skills of each generation to meet the needs of the other. Reviews screening, training, and a variety of placements for the teenage and older adult participants and discusses ongoing program benefits. (Author/NRB)

This issue deals with the future of an age-based public policy. Articles discuss the history of age-based public policy; the competing bases for benefits; population dynamics; Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare; employer policies; and local and state policies. Describes California's Linkages Program. (JOW)

Purpose: This brief report takes a look at the preliminary estimates of the number and proportion of migrants over the age of 60 who moved to and from states between 1995 and 2000 and compares these estimates with those who made the same kind of move one decade earlier. Design and Methods: The 2000 census 1-in-100 public-use microdata sample,…

Purpose: This report examines health care rates, charges, and patterns of consumption from a comprehensive California hospitalization data set covering 1986-1995. An improved understanding of current trends in health care consumption would facilitate the development of future resource allocation models. Design and Methods: We obtained discharge…

In this article, we describe an elective course using readers' theater with students in the health care professions and the arts. Readers' theater is a technique used for the performance of literature in which texts are staged with minimal production values and scripts are not fully memorized. These techniques are drawn upon more commonly in…

The disproportionate number of racial and ethnic minority children in the child welfare system concerns many child welfare professionals. Few studies have investigated how neighborhood processes may contribute to this disparity. This study examined how neighborhood characteristics are associated with rates of child maltreatment for black,…

Explores statistical relationships between socioeconomic characteristics of elderly persons in a large region of California and their consciousness and knowledge of services available to them. Service knowledge is a prerequisite to utilization or informal referrals. Education, age, sex, rurality, and minority status were found to be associated…

Examined how interest group struggles affect the formulation and implementation of a statewide long-term care system by using California's experience to illustrate the competition that can develop between senior citizens and disabled groups. (Author)