Data Needs and Uses for Older Adult Health Surveillance: Perspectives From State Health Agencies

As the population of older adults in the United States increases, state public health agencies are confronted with new opportunities and challenges (1). These agencies recognize the need to form new partnerships and develop effective and innovative approaches for addressing the needs of older adults (2). Public health initiatives to promote healthy aging and reduce the burden of chronic conditions are currently underway and include partnership efforts by public health organizations and aging services agencies to implement evidence-based health promotion programs, disseminate information about aging issues, and strengthen their ability to expand these efforts (3). To ensure that informed decisions are being made and to measure progress toward health goals related to older adults, state health agencies interpret and disseminate data on the health of older adults (4). These agencies rely on surveillance — the continuous, systematic collection and analysis of health data — a core tool of public health practice (5). However, previous work to develop indicators that measure whether a community promotes health and well-being among older adults (6) and to create a picture of older adult health has not focused on public health issues (7) or included state-level data (8). Similarly, the development of indicators for chronic diseases (9,10) has not focused on older adults. To fully understand the breadth and depth of older adult health from a public health perspective, these efforts must be combined to produce a core set of public-health–related indicators to measure older adult health at the state level.