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about 22 percent of the total population. The elderly minority population is also growing. In 1989, there were 2.5 million elderly blacks and 1 million elderly Hispanics. By 2020, the elderly black population is projected to more than double to 5.5 million, while the number of Hispanic elderly is expected to more than quadruple to over 4 million.

Older Americans as a group have a lower economic status than other adults in our society. Moreover, black and Hispanic older Americans have substantially smaller incomes than their white counterparts.

While the overall poverty rate among people 65 years of age and over was 11.4 percent in 1989, this rate was much higher for the minority elderly. In fact, according to census figures, 1 of every 3 elderly blacks (766,000 individuals) and 1 of every 5 elderly Hispanics (211,000 individuals) were poor in 1989--compared to 1 of every 10 elderly whites (2.5 million individuals). (See figure 1.)

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Findings from several studies also indicate that, in addition to a higher poverty rate, elderly minorities have greater needs in areas such as health services and supportive social services. Despite these needs, many minority elderly persons do not receive adequate services because of problems such as access, cultural barriers, and a lack of awareness concerning the availability of these services.

While making it clear that the Older Americans Act is intended to serve all older Americans, regardless of race or ethnicity, and is not a needs-based program, the Congress has specified through various amendments to the act that those with the greatest social or economic need, particularly low-income minorities, be given preference in the provision of Older Americans Act programs and services. scarce resources to those most in need is by no means new; it is at the very foundation of the Older Americans Act, which sought to target resources to the older population as a group perceived to have special needs for services.

This notion of "targeting"

The act has been amended several times in recent years to identify categories of individuals to receive preference for services.

Since 1984, state units and area agencies on aging have been specificlly required to target those elderly individuals with the greatest social or economic needs, "with particular attention to the needs of low income, minority individuals." Some of the

targeting initiatives currently authorized under the act include: the development of intrastate funding formulas; the description by state units, area agencies, and providers to address the needs of low-income minorities; reporting of actual minority participation in Older Americans act programs; the special provision of outreach efforts to identify and inform minorities of services they are eligible to receive; the establishment of area agency on aging advisory councils with minority elderly representation; employment of bilingual staff; and the training of staff in cultural sensitivity.

Despite this greater emphasis on serving the minority elderly population, the participation rate among minorities in programs authorized under the Older Americans Act is believed to have declined in the 1980's, according to data from AoA.

WHAT DATA ARE AVAILABLE TO ASSESS THE EFFECTIVENESS OF TARGETING?

Concerned about this decline in minority participation and, therefore, AoA's ability to reach minority elderly and other elderly with the greatest social or economic needs, you asked us to determine what data are available to assess the effectiveness of targeting initiatives.

Our answer to this question is that

methodological problems concerning the reliability of

participation data are a severe impediment to determining AoA's effectiveness in this area.

We have identified several problems with the methods used by AoA to collect program data, including problems with the current data collection instrument. As a result, it was impossible for us to determine whether minority participation in programs and services authorized under the Older Americans Act is increasing, decreasing, or remaining constant. Without accurate data on participation, we cannot determine the effectiveness of targeting initiatives.

We made more extensive comments on this issue at a hearing before the Senate Subcommittee on Aging of the Committee on Labor and Human Resources, where we stated that minority participation in Older Americans Act programs and services cannot be measured adequately at this time.1 We did find, however, that some states have developed computerized client-tracking systems that

potentially will allow them to measure minority participation in Older Americans Act programs. Such systems could allow states to

assess the effectiveness of their targeting initiatives. However, AoA has not developed the specific standards needed for the data input to these computer systems, and therefore the information cannot be compared across states.

lUnited States General Accounting Office, "Minority Participation in Administration on Aging Programs," testimony before the Subcommittee on Aging of the Committee on Labor and Human Resources, U.S. Senate (GAO/T-PEMD-91-1), March 15, 1991.

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