HEALTH-POLICY FOR THE AGED - WE DONT STUDY THE RIGHT PEOPLE

A review of articles on aging published during one year in seven major U.S. journals in the fields of general medicine, public health and ge rontology showed that only a minority of studies took into considerati on the factual attributes of the population. Only 53% of the articles included any basic demographic information, usually age. Race was ment ioned in 37%, but only 3% studied blacks or Hispanics; socioeconomic s tatus was given in 25%, marital status in 9%, and education in 19%. Re gardless of whether demographic factors were detailed in the descripti on of the study, they were rarely used in the analysis. We conclude th at information obtained in the course of studies of the elderly may no t reflect the actual needs of this population group which must be reco gnized as heterogeneous. More specific and refined data are needed to set priorities and make policy decisions.