Anchored at the Hub for Aging Collaboration, the Aging and Health Services Research Branch strives towards building an evidence base to support policy-making and healthy aging initiatives through interdisciplinary collaborations and training the next generation of health services scholars in aging. The collaborative network involving researchers from multiple schools and centers from within and outside Rutgers explores the individual, family, community, and system-level factors that influence older adults and healthy aging.
The project examines the extent to which local community-based service infrastructure is associated with healthcare utilization outcomes for people aging in community with cognitive impairment using CMS administrative data and data on older adult centers in Massachusetts.
The New Jersey Assisted Living Program (ALP) is an innovative housing-plus-services model founded by community leaders in New Jersey, designed to prevent or delay the institutionalization of low-income senior housing tenants who need assistance with basic activities of daily living (e.g., bath, mobility, and other self-care).
Despite high enthusiasm surrounding the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine, there was considerable hesitancy about the receipt of the same, especially during the initial phases of the vaccine rollout. The project examined the prevalence and predictors of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy among community-dwelling older adults using the 2020 Fall Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey.
The study explores the impact of Nurse Practitioner Scope of Practice (SOP) laws on End-of-Life outcomes among older adults, especially those who are from historically marginalized and under-served groups, using the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) and the Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey (MCBS).
The project aims to quantify family caregiving efforts at end-of-life and the role of decedent-level socio-demographic and health characteristics that influence caregiving intensity using data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS). We further explore the association between caregiving intensity and the management of symptoms at end-of-life.
Reducing the overutilization of end-of-life cancer therapies has been identified as an opportunity to improve the quality of care in oncology. This collaborative project uses SEER-Medicare data to explore the extent to which oncologists differ in their propensity for prescribing systemic therapies in the last 30 days of life.
Aging and Health Services Research branch operates within an infrastructure that supports research using data from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) in the form of research identifiable files (RIF) as well as limited datasets (LDS) that combine survey with administrative data. The infrastructure is certified by the CMS Data Privacy Safety Program. The certification demonstrates RU-SSW-IT’s compliance and preparedness with CMS security and privacy requirements, enabling the team to work with datasets that include HIPAA identifiers. The RU-SSW is one of the three centers at Rutgers with the certification from the CMS.
In addition to administrative datasets from Medicare and Medicaid, Hub for Aging Collaboration researchers use multiple publicly available and limited datasets in their research. These include the Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey (MCBS), the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), the National Health and Aging Trends Study (NHATS), the National Vital Statistics Mortality data (NVSS), the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) survey, Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health), LTC Focus data from Brown School of Public Health, Social Vulnerability Index (SVI) data, and Dartmouth Atlas data.
Students and other research scholars interested in collaborating with the Hub on research projects, please get in touch with Dr. Ayse Akincigil at aakinci@rutgers.edu
Browse each card to learn more about findings from this project. For a full list of publications, click here.
Physicians treating similar patients in similar care-delivery contexts vary in the intensity of life-extending care provided to their patients at the end-of-life. Physician psychological propensities are an important potential determinant of this variability, but the pertinent literature has yet to be synthesized. This paper conducts a review of qualitative studies to explicate whether and how psychological propensities could result in some physicians providing more intensive treatment than others.
End-of-Life (EOL) care quality encompasses multiple domains, which are typically studied in silos. This paper explores interrelationships across domains and how they simultaneously shape patterns of EOL care quality.
This study examines the prevalence and predictors of vaccine hesitancy among older adults living in the community. Relative to those relying on regular news, those depending on health care providers, social media, other internet/webpages, and family/friends as the primary information source on COVID-19 expressed higher negative vaccine intent during the period before the vaccine rollout.
Vaccination rates, especially among racial minorities, remain below official benchmarks despite it being the most cost-effective strategy to prevent common infectious diseases in older adults. This paper compared the effectiveness and costs of two community-based educational interventions aimed at improving knowledge and trust in vaccination. These interventions include a pharmacist-led didactic session (PHARM) and a peer-led educational workshop (PEER).
Reach out to the Aging & Health Services Research Team if you are interested in learning more about our work or collaborating on future projects.