Practice concepts expansion to practice concepts and policy analysis.

Editorial In keeping with The Gerontologist ' s mission to offer a multidisciplinary understanding of human aging, including the impact of social policy, we are expanding the Practice Concepts section to include papers that specifi cally analyze public policy as it affects aging populations and aging processes. We believe that a more explicit focus on social policy analysis will fi ll a need for increased awareness and understanding of the role of older adults in the policy-making process, as well as the impact of public policy on the well-being of older populations at federal, state, and local levels. To that end, we invite scholars to submit manuscripts that analyze relevant policy to the Practice Concepts and Policy Analysis editor. The manuscripts must adhere to the current word limit of 4,000 words for a Practice Concepts piece. The chief purpose of a policy analysis is to explain and share the insights obtained in the examination of a policy problem. There are four major components of a Policy Analysis paper. The fi rst step in a policy analysis is to defi ne and describe a specifi c policy issue that affects older adults. Raising an interesting policy question that can be answered through data analyses, as does Binstock in " Older voters and the 2008 Election " (Binstock, 2009 , pp. 697 – 701), is another way to defi ne and delineate a specifi c policy issue. In this section of the manuscript, suffi cient background information should be presented so that readers understand the context in which the policy issue or question is situated. Such context can include the key historical aspects of the issue, as well as the various policies and policy networks (political fi gures or organizations, interest groups, think tanks) that exist to address the issue (Patton & Sawicki, 1986). A brief discussion of the major stakeholders in the issue being featured is also appropriate. The second step in the policy analysis paper is to provide the readers with specifi c information about why this particular issue and an analysis of it are important to the fi eld of aging. Here, the author should offer a conceptual framework that will be used to guide the policy analysis. This section should contain a review of the relevant literature that will tie together key concerns raised with historical background on the topic, showing the reader some of the reasons why …