This core contains examples of the pilot projects that would be developed preparatory to initiating new research activities. These pilot projects can be of several different types. They could involve conferences directed to stimulate specific areas of research, analytic projects, and projects to assess the quality of certain types of data. There are six pilot projects presented. The first is a conference on LTC policy that would be designed to foster early use of the 1994 NLTCS data set. A number of economic, health service, demographic, and other issues will be addressed. It is anticipated that both a monograph and a special journal issue would result from the project. The second is a study of methods to collect data on home health care suppliers. If the survey methodology worked out it would be used to gather such data on a national basis. The third project is an analytic project that could lead to the development of a dynamic programming model where health status and investment in home health care interact. The fourth project is to assess methods to make estimates of active life expectancy from multiple data sets where the overall health transitions are only partially observed. The fifth project is to assess the ability to assess the cost of illness using Medicare and Medicaid data linked to NLTCS survey records. The sixth project is primary demographic. It would assess the quality of age reporting and cause of death reporting at advanced ages. Comparison would be made of Medicare and self-reported ages with ages reported on birth and death certificates collected from state vital statistics. In addition to the six projects, representing a range of projects that could be conducted in the first two years of the project a series of five working groups will be developed to foster the development of projects in years 3-5. The topics they represent are: women's health, active life expectancy, LTC needs of the elderly population. The biological basis for mortality and health changes at late age and International Comparative Studies of Aging Changes.
