Job Opening: Planning Council

Position Announcement: Evaluation Associate

The Planning Council has an opening for an Evaluation Associate position. The Evaluation Associate will be responsible for working on evaluations of health and human services programs and research related to community issues in Southeastern Wisconsin. The Planning Council is a non-profit organization that serves as an independent resource for information, education, research, and consulting on community issues.

Required Education and Experience
Education – Masters Degree or other advanced degree required.
Program evaluation experience – graduate level training and/or relevant work experience in program evaluation.
Community experience – past experience working with non-profit or governmental agencies, diverse community groups, and/or consumers of health or human services.

Required Skills
Listening skills – actively attends to and conveys understanding of the comments and questions of others; listens well in a group.
Analytical skills – gathers relevant information systematically; understands complexities and perceives relationships among problems or issues; accurately uses logic and interpretation in analyses; understands limitations of research approaches and methods.
Written communication skills – conveys information clearly and effectively; summarizes qualitative and quantitative data accurately and objectively, with attention given to the intended audience.
Oral communication skills – speaks clearly and expresses self well in groups and one-on-one.
Values diversity – shows respect and appreciation for diversity.
Interpersonal skills – sets appropriate personal and interpersonal boundaries; ability to be flexible.
Capacity for teamwork – works well both independently and within a team approach to project management.

Demonstrated Knowledge
Evaluation – familiarity with traditional program evaluation methods and emerging trends in evaluation; awareness of and/or experience with community-based research; familiarity with data collection instruments and procedures; familiarity with evaluator role and ethics; understanding of the function and use of program evaluation within non-profit agencies; understanding of the role of evaluation in federally funded programs (e.g., SAMHSA).
Data analysis –experience with quantitative and qualitative data analysis and data interpretation.
Computer software – proficient with the application of computer programs for data entry and data analysis (e.g., Excel, Access, SPSS).
Human services – experience in mental health and/or substance abuse fields highly preferred.

Please submit resume, cover letter, salary requirements, and references by May 15th, 2008 to:
Janet DeJesus, Office Manager
Planning Council for Health and Human Services, Inc.,
1442 N. Farwell Ave., Suite 300, Milwaukee, WI 53202
jdejesus [at] planningcouncil [dot] org

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Child Abuse and Data Transparency

A new report by First Star and the Children's Advocacy Institute at the University of San Diego's School of Law calls for better data standards and more openness in reporting child abuse and child deaths in the United States.

The report, State Secrecy and Child Deaths in the U.S. (PDF), says that "The majority of U.S. states fail to release adequate information about fatal and life-threatening child abuse cases, adhering to misguided and secretive policies that place confidentiality above the welfare of children and prevent public scrutiny that would lead to systemic reforms ..."

USA Today reports that what the groups are after is "maximum transparency."

The report caught my eye, and not just for the rankings of all 50 states in compliance with data reporting standards. It reminded me that a key role we play in compiling and disseminating community indicators reports is advocating for better and more open data reporting.

I know we get involved in this work because we want to change the community, and understand that the democracy of data creates shared knowledge, better decisions, and stronger actions. But we're also in the field to make sure that good data is available for everyone, and sometimes we fall short in ensuring that potential data providers understand the importance of sharing their information with the larger community.

What has been your experience in encouraging better data? How do you measure your efforts in improving the information available for your community, above and beyond reporting the information already available?

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CIC Innovation Awards

For the third year, CIC will be celebrating promising indicator practics with its Innovation Awards. Tell us about your project and how it has benefitted and brought change in your community, or nominate a project you feel meets the criteria. International projects are welcome. Go to www.communityindicators.net to learn more about the Awards and how to enter. Deadline for entries is 12 May 2008.

HIGHLIGHTING PROMISING PRACTICES
THE COMMUNITY INDICATORS CONSORTIUM
INNOVATION AWARDS 2008

“When an outside entity…recognizes your work, it elevates the
value of that product locally” Donna Sines, Executive Director, Community Vision,
Osceola County, FL, Third Place Winner 2007

For the third year in a row, we are delighted to invite you to apply for the Community Indicators Consortium’s (CIC) Innovation Awards Applications are due Monday, May 12, 2008.

We are seeking nominations of indicator projects (US or international) that best demonstrate positive change in their communities and the power of indicators to drive that change. The communities will likely be geographically contiguous areas, but they might be topical communities.

The purpose of the Awards is

• to celebrate the successes of outstanding indicator projects and the people who
  create and manage them
• to add to the public body of knowledge about community indicator projects’ best
  practices.

As before, we anticipate first, second, and third place awards and a selective number of nominations will be recognized as honorable mentions. The three winners and the honorable mentions will add to the body of knowledge about promising practices in the world of indicators. The winners will be invited to speak at our Annual Conference in Arlington, VA, on June 26 – 28, 2008, and their web links will be put on our website.

The more CIC can share the good news and celebrate success, the more we can help you, and practitioners and community leaders like you, to create real change and real benefit to your communities.

“CIC provides a forum…we were able to learn from like-minded
professionals and share Baltimore’s story of data-driven management”
Christ Thomaskutty, Deputy Mayor, Baltimore
CitiStat, Second Place Winner 2007

CRITERIA AND QUALIFICATIONS
Projects can be hosted by non-profit organizations, local government entities, or academic institutions. They will publish, electronically or in hard-copy, data-based indicators on community conditions for the purposes of better understanding conditions of concern and improving those conditions. Your community may be large or it may be small, but your impact will be significant.

We are interested in:

• Specific changes caused by the projects
• The tools and mechanisms used to catalyze action and drive community change

HOW TO APPLY
Applications are due Monday, May 12, 2008

1—A one-paragraph summary describing the nature of your project, the actual or forthcoming changes in the community that can be ascribed to the project, and the mechanisms through which change came about. Please include the name of the project, the sponsoring organization, contact name with phone number and e-mail address, name of the community your project covers, the project web site or published report, and the size of your organization (staff plus volunteers)

2—A short narrative (maximum three pages) describing the project in greater detail, including background and scope, what changes have occurred, and how you created/fostered these changes. For example:

• Why and when was your project created, what need brought it into being
• How wide-spread is its current and future impact
• What are/were your goals
• The size of the community your project seeks to influence
• Who benefits, directly and indirectly
• Specifically, what changes have occurred as a result of your work
• How did you do it
• What tools and methods have you employed
• What have you learned, and what can we learn from you

3—Provide the names, with contact information, of at least three individuals who are not paid project staff who would be willing to speak about the strength, value, and influence of your project.

THE EVALUATION PROCESS

1—All applications will be reviewed by at least three experts in the field of indicators. Choices will be made based on the projects’ meeting of the criteria. A panel of seven experts will be chosen by CIC.

2—Experts will independently rank the selected projects and then they will discuss their individual choices to reach consensus on the top ten projects.

3—The experts will conduct telephone interviews with the non-staff people you identify as knowing about the strength and influence of the project.

TIMELINE
Finalists will be notified by Friday, May 23, 2008. Winners will be notified by Friday, June 10, 2008. Winners will be invited to attend the Sixth Annual CIC Conference in Arlington, VA, on June 26 – 28, 2008, to speak about their projects and to receive their awards. Visit our web site, http://www.communityindicators.net/ , for more information about the Conference.

SEND YOUR APPLICATION TO:

Lynda Fairbanks Atkins
Interim Executive Director
Lfairbanks-atkins@comcast.net

Or

Community Indicators Consortium
Post Office Box 8222
Lynn, MA 01904

Electronic submission is preferred

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AGA Adds New Blog

The Advancing Government Accountability group -- http://www.agacgfm.org/homepage.aspx -- has added a new feature to their website.

Here's the news:

AGA's blog is a new feature on our AGA website (www.agacgfm.org ) that uses a variety of guest "speakers" to set the stage for the day's topic. Tomorrow I will be writing about performance reporting and some of the ways government entities have used their performance reports in decision making and citizen communication. I would appreciate your comments and observations not only to stimulate a good discussion but also to share best practices with those reading the blog.

The first set of articles are quite strong. Check it out!

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Call for Papers: Performance Measurement

Call for Papers
Symposium: Accountability and Performance Measurement in the Hollow State:
A Reflective Dialogue on the Evolving Role of Nonprofits in Public Service Delivery
October 23-24, 2008 in Cleveland Ohio

ASPA and ARNOVA have joined to co-sponsor a symposium directed to one of the most pressing challenges of public administration today: accountability and performance measurement in public – nonprofit partnerships. This symposium invites research directed to the challenges articulated by practitioners who are struggling with the complexities of accountability and performance measures in the new environment of third sector government, New Public Management and Sarbanes-Oxley legislation.

Symposium format and presentations will encourage dialogue between scholars and practitioners with the intention of generating a research agenda to strengthen the capacity of both sectors to engage in public service. Selected papers will be reviewed for Administration & Society as well as a special symposium of Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly.

In their proposals scholars are asked to explore innovative efforts as well as challenges and lessons learned. Authors must show the relevance of their research for addressing the challenges of government-nonprofit partnership in the current environment. We welcome papers focusing on how new accountability measures impact public sector organizations’ capacity to manage as well as govern.

From a nonprofit perspective, we are interested in how new measures of accountability are reshaping the nonprofit sector. What impact do new measures of accountability and performance have on nonprofits and their traditional contributions to citizenship and to partnership with the public sector? In brief, this symposium is designed to encourage scholars to look for how practice can inform theory in their identification of research topics.

SYMPOSIUM THEMES

• Accountability frameworks in cross-sector partnerships and networks: their impact on nonprofit-public relationships, inter-organizational partnerships, and measurement of key and intangible factors.
• Performance measurement and governance - including the legislative process, policy development, community indicators, and/or budgeting: the integration of accountability and performance measures in the management and governance process; including program design, management, and evaluation; use of community indicators to target resources and generate strategic results for communities.
• Strengthening the connection between mechanisms of accountability and performance: impacts of new government requirements regarding contract monitoring; for example, how will state and local governments comply with federal regulations without allowing them to become unduly onerous for provider agencies?

Examples of challenges experienced by public sector and nonprofit practitioners are posted at
the website address http://urban.csuohio.edu/cap_symposium; scholars are welcome to consider these or identify challenges relevant to their research interests in their own communities.

SUBMISSIONS

To propose a paper, please send a summary of 500-600 words to s.c.connor@csuohio.edu. All summaries should be submitted in MS Word format with a subject line of CAP symposium. The proposal should explain the relevance of the proposed research to the symposium themes. Proposals that are co-authored by teams of academics and practitioners will receive special consideration.

IMPORTANT DATES
Abstract of 500 words to be submitted: May 1, 2008
Notification of accepted submissions: May 15, 2008
First draft due: August 1, 2008
Deadline for early registration: August 15, 2008
Full paper to be submitted: September 30, 2008
Symposium at Cleveland State University: October 23-24, 2008

FOR MORE INFORMATION regarding the symposium, including registration, accommodations, schedule, registration fees, and case study postings of practitioners,
visit http://urban.csuohio.edu/cap_symposium/.

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In Praise of GDP

We've been talking about the need for broader indicators of progress than the Gross Domestic Product, and that need has launched an international summit and a new presidential commission in France.

Turns out, however, that some folks like the GDP just fine, thank you very much, and don't want it meddled with. Justin Fox opines in TIME magazine:

...[C]ompiling a reliable measure of all the economic activity in a country as big as this one is hard. Which is something to consider whenever you hear somebody arguing that GDP ought to be shelved in favor of some more holistic measure of economic well-being. Somebody like, say, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who early this year appointed a high-powered task force--boasting not just one but two economics Nobelists, Amartya Sen and Joseph Stiglitz--to devise a GDP replacement. Similar "ditch-GDP" noises can be heard frequently from enlightened sorts who care a lot about the environment, health care, education and happiness.

Now, there certainly are measures of economic and societal success that we ought to pay more attention to. But ditch GDP? Perish the thought.

One reason the GDP is getting a lot more love lately comes from the work by Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers where they show a positive correlation between GDP and happiness. From The New York Times report:

“The central message,” Ms. Stevenson said, “is that income does matter.”

To see what they mean, take a look at the map that accompanies this column. It’s based on Gallup polls done around the world, and it clearly shows that life satisfaction is highest in the richest countries. The residents of these countries seem to understand that they have it pretty good, whether or not they own an iPod Touch.

If anything, Ms. Stevenson and Mr. Wolfers say, absolute income seems to matter more than relative income. In the United States, about 90 percent of people in households making at least $250,000 a year called themselves “very happy” in a recent Gallup Poll. In households with income below $30,000, only 42 percent of people gave that answer.

Here's the chart they reference:



What are your reactions?

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Radical Math: Social Justice and Statistical Literacy

A recent conference explored the potential relationship between math instruction and social justice. For those of us using community indicators to create community change, some of the same lessons apply -- and the good news is that these lessons are now available in a standardized curriculum.

There's a resource called Radical Math that provides this framework to connect learning math with social justice. From the guide (PDF), here's two reasons why integrating these two concepts makes sense:

• Good math doesn’t mean good politics
  There are some textbooks and popular curricula that are useful for teaching young people mathematics. Many of these texts even use real-world contexts for instruction. However, very few of them are relevant to our young people, and they don’t have students investigate issues of social justice. Talking about a jar of Jelly Beans can be a fun way to learn about probability. But studying probability in the context of a unit on how the Lottery increases the economic divide between rich and poor will allow the class to cover the same mathematical content while simultaneously investigating an important issue of economic inequality.
  
• Good politics doesn’t mean good math
  Many people often make the mistake of thinking that just because we are talking about important and relevant issues, that there is good teaching and learning going on in our classrooms. Unless the math content itself is strong, even the most provocative conversations and lessons are actually doing students a disservice. It is an act of social in-justice to deny young people the opportunity to master the math that they are in your class to learn.

There's a fascinating article called Making Numbers Count at Tolerance.org that discusses this approach to learning math. I liked this quote from Janet Wayne, an 11th-grade math teacher in Los Angeles:

"These kids got involved socially and politically in their communities because they knew the numbers," Wayne says. "And I have to tell you, that's why I love math."

The approach is not without its critics, of course. I'll leave the arguments about politics in the classroom to others. But finding a way to increase statistical literacy by using real-world social justice data can't be all bad.

The resources page at Radical Math links to a series of background information (and a number of indicators data sources).

If you've been working with local math classes with your community indicators projects to provide the data for them to learn about graphs and data analysis, please share. If you aren't, here's an interesting idea to explore.

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Presenting Data: Case Study on Racial Disparities and Imprisonment

One of my interests in community indicators is measuring progress towards eliminating racial disparities. After considerable community dialogue around the issue, it became clear that, at least in my community, we needed a shared set of data to move from divergent perspectives to a shared understanding of reality. We also needed an unimpeachable data set for community accountability, and an objective way to tell if our community initiatives were working.

That being said, I started reading James R. Council's blog entry on America's Prison Crisis from a data presentation perspective (I was more interested in what data he was using and how he was sharing that data than in the conclusions he was reaching or their policy implications -- it's an occupational hazard sometimes.)

I saw some ways he used information that I thought were worth discussing, above and beyond the specific issue. (Though I highly recommend reading his piece for its intended effect as well -- the data are about real people, first and foremost. But I think you'll get that from the examples I'd like to share.)

Here's some of the data he presents:

1. The U.S. has 2.2 million prisoners. He takes that data point and relates it as a percentage of a larger set -- That "makes up 25% of the world’s prisoners in a country that holds 5% of the world’s total population." The 2.2 million number is now in context.

2. He continues to put the numbers in context by putting it in a population ratio -- 740 per 100,000. He then puts that in context by comparing the U.S. to countries we might want to be like, and countries we don't want to be like:

By contrast Libya, Zimbabwe, Saudi Arabia, China and Pakistan, countries whose rulers were rated in 2005 by Parade Magazine as the world’s worst dictators, have far lower reported rates of incarceration; the lowest is 57/100,000 in Pakistan and the highest is 207/100,000 in Libya (Fraser 2007). Other western democracies such as France, Germany, and England and Wales have 93, 98 and 140 per 100,000 respectively (Snacken 2006). The only European countries that rival America’s incarceration rates are Belarus and the Russian Federation with 554 and 595/100,000 (Snacken 2006).

3. He then establishes a trend line for a context over time. "America hasn’t always had such a high prison population. From the 1940s until the early 1970s, the incarceration rate in the U.S. hovered around 100/100,000 (Young 2007)."

4. Now that he has your attention, he turns to racial disparities. He takes the data on disparities and focuses attention on another contextual factor: the disparities in incarceration compared to disparities in economic, education, or other social indicators.

In his testimony before the Joint Economic Committee on October 4, 2007, Harvard University professor Bruce Western stated that, “young black men are now more likely to go to prison than to graduate college with a four-year degree, or to serve in the military” (2007). He goes on to say:

The large black-white disparity in incarceration is unmatched by most other social indicators. Racial disparities in unemployment (2 to 1), nonmarital childbearing (3 to 1), infant mortality (2 to 1), and wealth (1 to 5) are all significantly lower than the 7 to 1 black-white ratio in incarceration rates. (2007)



By this point, he had my attention. Then he began discussing the policies and practices that led to this point. It's an interesting discussion, found here.

Here's my takeaway:

• Data gain power/meaning in context.
• That context can include comparisons to communities we think we are like (or better than), or communities we think we are not like.
• The context can also include a cluster of other indicators to highlight where the problem isn't just bad, it's much worse than the other problems we already know are bad.
• And the data can be stronger than the soundbite -- compare:
  
  Over 40 years have passed since Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech, and the passing of landmark civil rights legislation. But looking at the contrast in incarceration rates between Black and White Americans, we seem to have a long way to go before we become a nation that, “judges a man not by the color of his skin, but by the content of his character."
  
  with this:
  
  [Byron Eugene Price's graph shows that], “by 2017, there will be more Blacks in prison (an estimated 2 million) than Blacks enslaved in 1860 (1.9 million).”
  
  What are your thoughts?
  

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Pick-ups and Politics

I don't know if you've been following this series of indicators that tries to define which U.S. states are most like Pennsylvania. This is an interesting use of unusual indicators to define community.

In the first blog entry, Brian Schaffner looks at pick-up truck ownership and shopping at Wal-Mart. Conclusions? "As you can see from the figure, the percentage of Wal-Mart shoppers in a state is related to the percentage of pickup truck owners."

In the second post, the key indicators are "the percentage of citizens in each state who watch PBS (at least occasionally) and the percentage who say that they are invested in the stock market."

The third post compares indicators of gun ownership and feelings toward Jon Stewart. And this post puts it all together.

I don't know how many of you are currently using any of these six indicators for your community. I share them with you for two reasons: first, because the analysis of which state is "most like" Pennsylvania is interesting, and second, because sometimes we need to think differently about how to measure trends in our communities. (Like riding bicycles.)

Anyone have other examples of unusual indicators we should pay attention to?

(Hat tip: The Numbers Guy)

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Measuring the Progress of Societies

The summary video of the OECD Global Project on "Measuring the Progress of Societies" is available at http://www.oecd.org/oecdworldforum

This short movie (12 minutes) describes the OECD Global Project on "Measuring the Progress of Societies". It was made during the second OECD World Forum on "Statistics, Knowledge and Policy" held on 27-30 June 2007 in Istanbul, Turkey.

Measuring and Fostering the Progress of Societies - A Global Initiative (Part 1) [Streaming Flash video]

Measuring and Fostering the Progress of Societies - A Global Initiative (Part 2) [Streaming Flash video]

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Older Americans 2008 Released

Get the report at http://www.agingstats.gov/agingstatsdotnet/main_site/default.aspx. Here are excerpts from the press release:

Americans Living Longer, Enjoying Greater Health and Prosperity, but Important Disparities Remain, Says Federal Report

Average life expectancy continues to increase, and today’s older Americans enjoy better health and financial security than any previous generation. However, rates of gain are inconsistent between the genders and across age brackets, income levels and racial and ethnic groups. Some critical disparities also exist between older Americans and older people in other industrialized countries. These and other trends are reported in Older Americans 2008: Key Indicators of Well-Being, a unique, comprehensive look at aging in the United States from the Federal Interagency Forum on Aging-Related Statistics.

Highlights from Older Americans 2008 include:

Population – The demographics of aging in the United States continue to change dramatically, as the baby boomers accelerate growth in the percentage and numbers of older people and other important parameters change.

· In 2006, an estimated 37 million people in the United States—12 percent of the population—were 65 and older. Projections forecast that by 2030, approximately 71.5 million people will be 65 and older, representing nearly 20 percent of the total U.S. population.
· In 1965, 24 percent of older adults had graduated from high school, and 5 percent had bachelor’s degrees. By 2007, 76 percent were high school graduates, and 19 percent had at least a bachelor’s degree. Substantial educational differences exist among racial and ethnic groups. Eighty-one percent of non-Hispanic whites age 65 and older had finished high school in 2007, compared with 72, 58 and 42 percent, respectively, of older Asians, blacks and Hispanics.

Economics – More older people enjoy increased prosperity than any previous generation, with an increase in higher incomes and a decrease in the proportion of older people with low incomes and in poverty. However, major inequalities continue to exist for older blacks and for people without high school diplomas, who report smaller economic gains and fewer financial resources.

· Income generally rose between 1974 and 2006. The proportion of older people with incomes below the poverty line went from 15 percent to 9 percent; those categorized with low income dropped from 35 percent to 26 percent; those with high incomes increased from 18 percent to 29 percent.
· Median net worth for households headed by whites age 65 and older was six times that of older black households, although the gap has slightly narrowed since 2003.
· More older people, especially women, continued to work past age 55.

Health Status – Americans’ longevity continues to increase, although life expectancy at age 65 in the United States is lower than that of other industrialized countries. While older people experience a variety of chronic health conditions that often accompany aging, the rate of functional limitations among people age 65 and older has declined in recent years.

· Life expectancy in the U.S. is lower than that of many high-income countries, such as Canada, France, Sweden and Japan. For example, in 2003, women age 65 in Japan could expect to live 3.2 years more on average than women in the United States, with the difference among men at 1.2 years. In the early 1980s, U.S. women age 65 had one of the highest average life expectancies in the world, but over the next two decades, the life expectancies of older women in many countries surpassed that of women in the United States.
· The prevalence of certain conditions differs by sex and by race and ethnicity. Women reported higher levels of arthritis than men did, while men reported higher levels of heart disease and cancer. Non-Hispanic blacks reported higher levels of hypertension and diabetes than did non-Hispanic whites. Hispanics reported higher levels of diabetes than did non-Hispanic whites.
· The prevalence of functional limitations declined from 49 percent in 1992 to 42 percent in 2005.

Health Risks and Behaviors – Factors affecting the health and well-being of older Americans, such as smoking history, influenza and pneumonia vaccinations and mammogram screenings, are key indicators that have shown long-term improvements but no significant change in recent years.

· There was no significant change in the percentage of older people engaged in physical activity between 1997 and 2006.
· The percentage of people age 65 and older who are obese, as with other age groups, increased between 1988-1994 and 2005-2006, from 22 percent to 31 percent. However, over the past several years, the trend appears to have leveled off.
· The percentage of older people living in counties with poor air quality for any air pollutant decreased from 55 percent in 2000 to 34 percent in 2006.

Health Care – Health care costs, particularly for prescription drugs, have risen dramatically for older Americans.

· Between 1992 and 2004, average inflation-adjusted health care costs for older Americans increased from $8,644 to $13,052. Costs varied by race and ethnic group, income and health status.
· In 2004, as in the previous 4 years, over half of out-of-pocket health care spending (excluding health insurance premiums) by community-dwelling older people was for purchase of prescription drugs. By 2004, prescription medications accounted for 61 percent of these out-of-pocket expenses. Out-of-pocket costs for prescription drugs are expected to decline because of the savings available through the Medicare prescription drug program.
· The implementation of the Medicare Part D prescription drug benefits is included in the Indicators volume for the first time. From June 2006 through September 2007, the number of beneficiaries age 65 or older enrolled in the program increased from 18.2 million to 19.7 million, with two-thirds selecting stand-alone plans and one-third in Medicare Advantage plans.

Several new specific indicators have been added in Older Americans 2008:

· Housing. Most older people live in adequate, affordable housing. However, a significant percentage has housing-related issues that can pose problems to an older person’s physical or psychological well-being. In 2005, 41 percent of households with people over age 65 had significant housing-related problems, such as housing cost burden (expenditures on housing and utilities that exceed 30 percent of household income), physically inadequate housing and crowded housing. The prevalence of housing cost burden for households with people age 65 and over increased from 30 percent in 1985 to 38 percent in 2005, compared with 26 and 33 percent, respectively, for all U.S. households. Notably, a smaller percentage of older adults’ housing had major physical problems, such as faulty plumbing or poor upkeep—5 percent in 2005 versus 8 percent in 1985.

· Use of Time. The proportion of leisure time that older Americans spent socializing and communicating—such as visiting friends or attending social events—declines by age, from 13 percent in those ages 55 to 64 to 10 percent for those 75 and over. The proportion of leisure time devoted to sports, exercise, recreation and travel also declines with age. On an average day, most Americans age 65 and older spent at least half of their leisure time watching television. Americans age 75 and older spent a higher proportion of their leisure time reading, relaxing and thinking than did those ages 55 to 64.

· Health Literacy. Among older Americans, the average level of health literacy—the extent to which people can obtain, process and understand basic health information and services—was lower than that of any other age group, and it continued to decrease with age. Thirty-nine percent of people age 75 and over had below basic health literacy, compared with 23 percent of people ages 65 to 74 and 13 percent of people ages 50 to 64.

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