Centre for Policy on Ageing



Health policy for the aged — we don't study the right people
Author(s)	B Modan, M G Kovar, J A Weeks
Journal title	Aging: Clinical and Experimental Research, vol 10, no 1, February 1998
Pages	pp 1-4
Keywords	Health [elderly] ; Health services ; Policy ; Demography ; Literature reviews ; United States of America.
Annotation	A review of articles on ageing published during 1990 in seven major US journals in the fields of general medicine, public health, and gerontology showed that only a minority of studies took into consideration the factual attributes of the population. Only 53% of articles included any basic demographic information, usually age. Ethnic group was mentioned in only 37%, but only 3% studied blacks or Hispanics; socio-economic status was given in 25%, marital status in 9%, and education in 19%. Regardless of whether demographic factors were detailed in the description of the study, they were rarely used in the analysis. The authors conclude that information obtained in the course of studies of older people may not reflect the actual needs of this population group which must be recognised as heterogeneous. Data should be based on the population affected in order to set priorities and make policy decisions. (RH).
Accession Number	CPA-980625224 A
Classmark	CC: L: QAD: S8: 64A: 7T
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing

...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing.