Everyone should have the opportunity to lead a healthy, financially secure life as they age. But across factors like age, sex, and race or ethnicity, some groups of older adults are more likely than others to face financial insecurity, inadequate access to health care, and unmet needs for long-term care.
For example, older adults of color face greater social and economic risks for poor health, such as low incomes or inadequate access to health care, and are more likely to encounter health risks and barriers throughout their lives. As a result, they are more likely to experience disease and disability and encounter barriers to healthy aging.
That doesn’t have to be the case. The Aging Opportunity Dashboard provides actionable state- and county-level data on the factors shaping well-being among adults ages 50 and older. It also offers promising policy strategies that federal, state, and local decisionmakers can pursue to close the gaps they identify. By offering local data alongside policy solutions, the dashboard helps inform decisions, target resources, and support efforts to improve outcomes and expand opportunities for all older Americans.
How to Use the Dashboard
Drawing on a wide range of data sources, the Aging Opportunity Dashboard offers 35 metrics spanning health and health care, financial security, and long-term care. It allows you to do three key things:
- Understand how metrics vary by place. After you select the location and data category you’re interested in, you can view each metric in the category on the map and as an individual chart. The map allows you to see patterns at the national, regional, and state levels, while the charts show data for your location compared with the surrounding state. You can also add another community to compare metrics with, and the charts below the map will populate with data for both locations.
- Understand the experience of specific populations of older adults. You can choose to see data displayed for unique age, sex, and race and ethnicity groups. You can also combine these demographic characteristics to view information for more narrowly defined groups. For example, if you select “Black” and “female,” the map and the charts will show information only for this population, as the data allow.
- Understand how metrics vary by age, race or ethnicity, and sex. In addition to zooming in to see data for a specific population, you can zoom out to see how data differ across demographic subgroups. To view data for available subgroups, select “compare subpopulations” below the map. For example, if you use this function to break down the health care metrics by age, the charts will show available data points for adults ages 65 to 74, 75 to 84, and 85 and older.
You can also use the dashboard to create, print, and share your own visual fact sheet. To share your dashboard view via link, simply copy the unique dashboard URL in your search bar. To create a custom PDF of select charts, first add charts to your print queue. Select “add to print” on an individual chart, or use the “add all to print” button to add an entire category of metrics to the queue. Select “print” in the box above the map to save and print the PDF with your selected charts. Individual charts can also be downloaded as .PNG images.
To get started, select a state or county and a data category below.
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Policy Opportunities
Below, we highlight promising paths federal, state, and local leaders can take to help more older adults achieve long-term health and financial well-being. Read our accompanying briefs for additional details on these opportunities, promising strategies practitioners can pursue, and profiles of counties where targeted efforts could have the greatest impact.
Health and Health Care
State and local leaders can improve older adults’ access to and use of preventive care, strengthen chronic disease management, and help adults avoid preventable hospitalizations in several ways:
- building sustainable funding streams for community health worker programs focused on hypertension and cardiovascular risk reduction
- using targeted funding and reporting requirements to make trusted, convenient vaccination options accessible in every community and close vaccination gaps
- building partnerships among home- and community-based service providers, community health workers, and aging services organizations to better coordinate older adults’ care and reduce preventable hospitalizations
To decrease avoidable deaths, federal, state, and local governments can work alongside health systems and community partners to prioritize the following:
- deploying community health workers to strengthen follow-up and support for blood pressure control and diabetes management in communities with low use of related preventive and chronic care services
- expanding team-based delivery of Medicare preventive visits and structuring them to identify and address high-mortality risks, including uncontrolled blood pressure, diabetes, and gaps in cancer screening and follow-up
- pairing trusted, culturally responsive vaccine communication with convenient access to influenza and pneumococcal vaccines to prevent severe respiratory illness and death among older adults
Financial Security
Local governments and elected officials have considerable influence in shaping policies that affect older adults’ economic well-being. Below are some ways they can use their influence to help every adult in their community thrive financially:
- pursuing home weatherization and repair programs for older homeowners, policies that limit tenant screening practices, and other efforts that improve housing access and stability
- helping older adults build and maintain emergency savings through matched savings programs and savings incentives for employees of municipal governments, which have a relatively high share of older workers
- investing in place-based strategies for improving access to credit, such as special-purpose credit programs (PDF), public banking, and some community development financial institutions
- protecting older adults from predatory financial products and scams by attracting mission-driven financial institutions to communities
- helping older workers access high-quality jobs by offering digital literacy courses and online job search assistance, enforcing employment discrimination laws, and supporting existing employment assistance programs for these workers
- exploring how tax policies, such as targeted homestead exemptions, property tax deferral programs, and tax credits for caregivers, can bolster older adults’ financial security
- improving awareness of and access to workplace-based retirement programs, including automatic IRA programs
State policymakers have a major role to play in improving older adults’ access to SNAP benefits. The following are state policies and actions that can simplify enrollment and reduce administrative burdens to help more adults participate in the program:
- The Elderly Simplified Application Project simplifies application, verification, and recertification processes for older adults meeting specific state and federal criteria.
- The Standard Medical Deduction (PDF) simplifies SNAP rules around medical expense deductions, reducing participants’ paperwork requirements and potentially increasing benefit amounts.
- Combined Application Projects allow older adults applying for Supplemental Security Income to access SNAP through a coordinated process, reducing paperwork and making it easier for people to enroll in SNAP.
- Broad-based categorical eligibility allows states to align SNAP eligibility rules with other means-tested assistance programs, often reducing or eliminating asset tests.
- State investments in enrollment support, administrative modernization, and partnerships with community organizations can help connect more adults with SNAP benefits.
Long-Term Care
Federal, state, and local leaders can take the following steps to enhance the availability and quality of long-term care and, in turn, improve quality of life for adults living in nursing homes and assisted living:
- using Medicaid payment policies to incentivize high-quality care (PDF), such as requiring that a defined share of Medicaid revenue be spent on direct care and offering supplemental payments to Medicaid-certified facilities that meet high standards, are geographically critical, or serve specific high-acuity populations
- leveraging workforce supports, such as wage pass-throughs, tuition support, and career ladders, to ensure adequate staffing in facilities
- monitoring nursing facility referrals and identifying admission and transfer practices that are reinforcing disparities in access to high-quality care