This proposal is to hold a state of the science conference on meeting the nation's needs for personal assistance services (PAS), sponsored by the national Center for Personal Assistance Services at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF). PAS, also known as personal care or attendant care services, is defined as paid or unpaid help with activities of daily living or instrumental activities of daily living for individuals with disabilities who are living at home, in the community, and at the workplace. The conference will have two purposes: (1) to summarize, synthesize, and disseminate current research findings on PAS to researchers, policy makers, advocates, and other stakeholder groups, and (2) to discuss research issues in the delivery of PAS in order to develop a future research agenda for the study of PAS. The focus of the conference will be on access, quality, and costs of PAS delivered in the home, the community, and the workplace as well as PAS workforce trends and future research needs. ? ? A one-day conference in Washington, D.C. will be designed for 150 individuals in the aging and disability field including: long term care researchers, federal and state long term care policy makers, legislative staff members, PAS users, policy analysts and representatives of disabled and aged advocacy and consumer organizations, media representatives, health professionals, and employers. Principal researchers of the national Center for Personal Assistance Services will prepare a paper and present a synthesis of their own research along with other relevant research studies on PAS. Leading experts in the field will critique the work and identify areas for future research. Discussants and participants will contribute ideas for a future research agenda for the field. The products of the project will be four publishable syntheses papers prepared before the conference and one publishable paper identifying a research agenda for the future based on the conference findings. ? ? ?
