Confronting the Long-Term Care Crisis

“Linking TANF Recipients with Paraprofessional Long-Term Care Jobs.” Jacqueline Kauff, Gretchen Kirby, and LaDonna Pavetti, May 2005. Attracting and retaining aides to care for elderly, disabled, and chronically ill people is a major concern for the long-term care industry. At the same time, TANF recipients are searching for employment opportunities to move from welfare to work. Do these two needs create a match? This six-page issue brief summarizes findings from a data analysis of the characteristics of TANF recipients in select states and a qualitative study of five programs that train TANF recipients and other low-income individuals for long-term care jobs. The brief explores the possibilities of linking TANF recipients with paraprofessional long-term care jobs. The cross-state data were collected using a common survey instrument developed at Mathematica—for more on the survey, click here.

“Training TANF Recipients and Low-Income Populations for Long-Term Care Paraprofessional Jobs.” Jacqueline Kauff, March 2005. This report presents findings from a qualitative analysis of five programs that train TANF recipients and similar low-income populations for paraprofessional jobs in the long-term care industry. The programs were located in the District of Columbia; Tucson, Arizona; Dakota County, Minnesota; Bronx, New York; and Richmond, Virginia. Findings suggest many different ways to design and implement successful training programs for TANF recipients. Training individuals with multiple barriers is difficult, and programs must be creative in designing training that is attractive to TANF programs functioning under a "work-first" philosophy.

“TANF Recipients as Potential Long-Term Care Workers: An Assessment of the Prospects in the District of Columbia, Illinois, Maryland, and South Carolina.” Gretchen Kirby, LaDonna Pavetti, Jeffrey Max, and Jesse Gregory, March 2005. The long-term care industry’s need for workers and TANF recipients’ need for jobs could be mutually beneficial if, indeed, recipients’ characteristics, skills, and circumstances match the requirements, accessibility, and availability of these jobs. This paper analyzes characteristics of long-term care jobs and the individuals who hold them; examines characteristics and circumstances of all single-parent TANF case heads in the four study states, and of those recipients who are or have recently been employed in the long-term care industry; and predicts the likelihood of employment among current TANF recipients. Based on this analysis, we estimate that just over half of those on the TANF caseload in the four study states have the potential to succeed in paraprofessional long-term care jobs.

Medicare Advantage

"Estimating Medicare Advantage Lock-In Provisions' Impact on Vulnerable Medicare Beneficiaries." Mary Laschober, Health Care Financing Review, spring 2005. Starting in January 2006, Medicare beneficiaries will have limited ability to change health plans. The author examines Medicare managed care enrollment and disenrollment of vulnerable beneficiaries from 1999 to 2001 to estimate the impact of these upcoming restrictions. Several groups were more likely to make multiple health plan elections, leave their managed care plan midyear, and/or have higher voluntary disenrollment rates and transfers to fee-for-service Medicare, suggesting that the lock-in provisions may have greater negative impacts on vulnerable groups. To lessen these effects, it will be important to ensure that these groups fully understand the ramifications of their health care decisions.

Raising High School Achievement

"When to Hold Them and When to Fold Them: Appraising Structural Strategies for Raising Achievement." Mark Dynarski, May 2005. In international education studies, America's 10th graders rank below average in math and science, while our 4th graders rank very high. What happens between 4th and 10th grade to explain the drop in performance? This paper, which was presented at a conference hosted by Learning Point Associates and the Institute of Education Sciences in May, looks at possible explanations and posits some structural strategies for raising achievement.

Substance Abuse Treatment Data

"National Directory of Drug and Alcohol Abuse Treatment Programs 2005." Clinicians, administrators, and policymakers in the substance abuse treatment field have a newly updated directory to help them in seeking treatment facilities for their clients. The directory is based on Mathematica's large-scale annual survey of all known facilities in the United States, both private and public, that provide substance abuse treatment. The survey, known as the National Survey of Substance Abuse Treatment Services (N-SSATS), involves contacting more than 16,500 substance abuse treatment facilities across the country to gather data on the treatment programs they offer and the number of people they treat, along with information on facility characteristics. Over 96 percent of the facilities responded. The directory is searchable by location and type of treatment service provided.

Information for Decision Making

Conducting high-quality research on national social policy issues is at the heart of our business. Mathematica’s research experts will be well represented at the Administration for Children and Families' Annual Welfare Research and Evaluation Conference in Arlington, Virginia, June 13 to 15. This conference is a forum for welfare researchers and policymakers to learn about the latest findings in welfare reform, formulate ways to incorporate evaluation results into the design and implementation of programs and policies, and develop effective strategies to ensure sound evaluations of welfare reform. The conference will feature research on a range of topics, including healthy marriage, abstinence education, family formation, special populations, and the future of welfare reform. Click here for a listing of presenters. For more on the conference, go to http://www.wrconference.net.

AcademyHealth Presentations

Mathematica's experts in Medicare, Medicaid, disability, child health, coverage and access, and other topics will be presenting their research at the AcademyHealth annual research meeting held in Boston at the end of June. We'll also be exhibiting our latest work in booth 410. The goals of the meeting are to share the results of health services research, identify and articulate future health care information needs, nurture the careers of researchers, and provide opportunities for producers and users of research to learn from each other. Click here for a listing of presenters.

For news about other upcoming presentations click here.