Understanding how demographic, economic, and policy trends are reshaping aging across the U.S. is essential to helping national, state, and local stakeholders plan for and support older adults’ evolving needs. Policymakers, government staff, and their partners could benefit from more robust, accessible aging-related data to identify trends, uncover gaps, and inform potential opportunities to better support older adults. This need inspired West Health to develop the National Aging Readiness Dashboard featured on their Mosaic website.
The Dashboard brings together aging-related data from multiple sources — such as the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, and the National Housing Preservation Database — into a publicly available, interactive platform. By consolidating national- and state-level data across multiple domains, the Dashboard supports a wide range of users by providing centralized information to inform discussions and spur innovation that improve the lives of older adults — including within Medicaid, which regularly intersects with long‑term services and supports and other aging‑related needs.
Supporting the Aging Readiness Dashboard
The Center for Health Care Strategies (CHCS) partnered with West Health in developing the Dashboard, offering guidance on data selection, design, and functionality. CHCS convened experts and state leaders involved in data analytics and aging-related planning efforts to serve as technical advisors and conducted key informant interviews with state leaders developing multisector plans for aging to understand how a national aging dashboard could support their work. CHCS continues to support content development for the Dashboard. Learn more
By integrating data from multiple sources, the Dashboard provides a comprehensive view of key domains that impact older adults and how these various factors intersect.
National- and state-level data domains include:
- Policy activity about states’ multisector plans for aging, including links to resources;
- Demographics by age, race and ethnicity, household composition, and disability status;
- Economic security, including income sources and financial conditions for older adults;
- Health care coverage and access, such as health insurance status;
- Health status related to physical and behavioral health, including multiple chronic conditions;
- Health care costs, including per capita Medicare spending and out-of-pocket costs;
- Mental health indicators related to social isolation, life satisfaction, and depression;
- Dementia and cognitive decline;
- Caregiving, including both paid and unpaid caregiving;
- Housing and homelessness, such as housing costs, affordability, and insecurity; and
- Transportation access and its impact on aging in place.
These integrated datasets may be particularly useful for states beginning or refining a multisector plan for aging and looking to incorporate national- or state-level data into an aging-focused dashboard, as well as for other aging-related planning or policy activities. The Dashboard also includes interactive data visualizations that can be tailored and downloaded for use in presentations, research, and other materials.
What’s Next
The National Aging Readiness Dashboard is intended to evolve as new data become available and users’ needs change. West Health welcomes input on additional datasets, features, and functionality to support continued relevance and usefulness to the field. View this video to learn more about the Dashboard.
