HEALTH-SERVICES UTILIZATION AMONG OLDER ADULTS - CONCEPTUAL, MEASUREMENT, AND MODELING ISSUES IN SECONDARY ANALYSIS

Much is written about the use of health services by older adults. Many such studies involve secondary analyses of existing data sources and rely on the behavioral model of health services utilization as the con ceptual framework. This essay suggests that for both independent and d ependent variables, severe shortcomings in the breadth and depth of th e available data, and the numbers of intervals at which data have been recorded, continue to limit our understanding of the use of health se rvices by older adults.