It is well known that disability rates among the American elderly have declined over the past decades. The cause of this decline is less well established. In this paper, we test one important possible explanation--that the decline in disability occurred because of chronic disease prevention...

Life tables with specific causes of death, particularly when adjusted for demographic and other personal characteristics, can be important components of cost-effectiveness and other economic studies. However, there are few sources of nationally representative information that can be used to...

This paper explores the influence of various characteristics on nursing home utilization. It examines a targeted population of elderly individuals whose poor health and lack of social supports were expected to lead to heavy use of long-term care. We develop an empirical framework based on a...

The highly uneven distribution of Medicare payments among elderly beneficiaries, combined with the predictability of some of the expenditures, poses several challenges to the Medicare program. We present information about the distribution of Medicare expenditures among beneficiaries in specific...

It is well known that disability rates among the American elderly have declined over the past decades. The cause of this decline is less well established. In this paper, we test one important possible explanation--that the decline in disability occurred because of chronic disease prevention...