ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES OF HEALTH EVENTS

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The proposed research will explore the relationship between important new health events and functional, behavioral, and economic outcomes for older Americans using a unique combination of longitudinal databases. The research will employ three waves of the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) survey, two waves of the Asset and Health Dynamics of the Oldest Old (AHEAD) survey, and twelve waves over four years of the Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey (MCBS). Analysis of AHEAD and MCBS will involve linked longitudinal Medicare claims data to assist in validation and characterization of health events. The specific aims include: 1. To construct medically-meaningful variables and groups of variables to summarize health problems and, especially, the occurrence of significant new health events. 2. To validate self-reports of the existence and new occurrence of particular health problems, by using linked longitudinal Medicare claims data. 3. To conduct exploratory studies of the consequences of health events for functional status, economic behavior (particularly labor supply and living arrangements), and financial well-being of individuals and their spouses.