The proposed research will examine the provision of care to the elderly by their families. The emphasis will be on the relationship between the health status of the elderly and the assistance they receive. Because a solid foundation on issues of health status measurement and modeling will be required to conduct rigorous analyses of transfers to the elderly, these topics will be the focus of the training component. The training will consist of enrollment in formal courses, completion of directed readings, attendance at special conferences, and collaborative research with experts in the field of health and socioeconomic outcomes. For mentors, I will draw upon four researchers who will provide required and complementary skills. James P. Smith is Chair of Labor Market and Demographic Studies at RAND. He has extensive experience modeling socioeconomic and demographic processes. Robert B. Wallace is Head of the Department of Preventive Medicine and will, therefore, provide a clinical perspective to the research. Moreover, Dr. Wallace was responsible for designing the questions pertaining to health status that were used in one of the two surveys that will be examined in the proposed research. Ron D. Hays is a Senior Social Policy Analyst at RAND and Adjunct Associate Professor at the UCLA School of Medicine. His research emphasis has been on constructing and evaluating measures of health status and health-related behavior, Paul Gertler is a Senior Health Economist at RAND who has extensive experience with behavioral and econometric models of health status. The research project will examine the relationship between family assistance received by the elderly and their health and changes in their health. Various measures of health status will be examined, including self-reported activities of daily living, instrumental activities of daily living, general health, chronic conditions, cognition, as well as clinical information. Moreover, the research will treat family assistance as multidimensional, taking the form of shared housing, direct financial transfers, and assistance with a variety of activities. The research project will also determine whether programs such as Social Security and Supplemental Security Income influence the amount of assistance family members provide to the elderly. Although these government assistance programs were established to enhance the well- being of the elderly, they may have the unintended effect of dissuading family members from providing the same level of support that they would in the absence of the programs. Knowledge of health measurement and modeling will allow me to develop my specific, intermediate-run research agenda on the relationship between health status and family support, as described in the research proposal. Moreover, one of the benefits of my training program is that it will continue to reap dividends throughout mu career. Almost all behavioral decisions of the elderly, whether they be the provision of family assistance, labor market participation, must consider health. Therefore, any analysis of aging that I will conduct throughout my career will be enhanced by the skills I develop during this SERCA. The training will take place at RAND, the University of California at Los Angeles, and the University of Southern California. Each of these institutions conducts world-renowned research on health and aging, and I will tap into the unique resources available at each organization.
