TY  - JOUR
AU  - Garber,Alan M.
AU  - MaCurdy,Thomas E.
TI  - Predicting Nursing Home Utilization Among the High-Risk Elderly
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 2843
PY  - 1989
Y2  - February 1989
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w2843
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w2843.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Alan M. Garber
Provost
Harvard University
Massachusetts Hall
Cambridge, MA 02138
Tel: 617/496-5100
Fax: 617/495-8550
E-Mail: alan_garber@harvard.edu

Thomas E. MaCurdy
Department of Economics
Stanford University
Stanford, CA  94305-6072
Tel: 650/723-3983
Fax: 650/725-5702
E-Mail: tmac@leland.stanford.edu
M1  - published as Alan M. Garber, Thomas E. MaCurdy. "Predicting Nursing Home Utilization among the High-Risk Elderly," in David A. Wise, editor, "Issues in the Economics of Aging" University of Chicago Press, 1990 (1990)

AB  - 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 transition probability model to describe the frequency and duration of nursing home admissions. Using longitudinal data on the high-risk elderly enrollees of the National Long-Term Care Demonstration ("Channeling" demonstration), we. find that a small set of characteristics distinguish individuals who are likely to be heavy utilizers of nursing homes from low utilizers. The factors associated with a high likelihood of institutionalization are not identical to the health characteristics associated with high mortality; for example, the likelihood of death increases with age, but nursing home utilization does not, when functional status and other characteristics are held constant. A somewhat healthier population might have used nursing homes more heavily than the Channeling participants, whose nursing home utilization was limited by high mortality.
ER  -