Tracking the Consequences of Disability in the National Health and Aging Trends Study

Disability and chronic disease have profound economic and other consequences for older individuals, their families and society. Providing measures to allow analyses to better understand these consequences and track how they develop as chronic disease and functional decline arise and progress is one of the central aims of the NSAH. This presentation will describe and provide the conceptual framework for measuring the outcomes of functional decline in several domains: living and long term care arrangements, financial consequences of medical and other disability-related costs for individuals, families, and public programs, economic wellbeing, and quality of life. Unique contributions will be the ability to track functional decline and its consequences from very early stages, to examine factors related to how individuals and their families choose to respond, and to observe the implications of different responses for outcomes. These outcomes and their measurement will be examined in the broader conceptual framework of the disablement process central to the NSAH.