Estimating Eligibility for Publicly-Financed Home Care: Not a Simple Task..

A number of proposals have been advanced to establish a uniform home care benefit for the frail elderly. Measures of disability using the Activities of Daily Living (ADL) have been used to estimate the numbers of persons potentially eligible under such proposals. This article shows that, even with a common approach to eligibility based on ADLs, the estimates from national surveys vary widely — from 0.5 million to 3.8 million persons. Such differences are affected by program targeting criteria but also by each survey's sampling frame, sample size, wording of questions on ADL status and the selection of variables for analysis. (ASPE Research Notes, Volume 1) [5 PDF pages]