SBIR-STTR Award

The older Americans market is significant and growing. Over 31 million people 65 and older were enumerated in the 1990 Census, and nearly $340 billion was spent by older Americans' households in 1988. Decision Demographics will create the information tools necessary for the private and public sectors to identify, target and serve this group. The Decision Demographics Older Americans Market: Forecasts for U.S. Counties project will provide, for the first time, annual estimates and five-and ten-year forecasts by age, sex, and living arrangements for the elderly in all U.S. Counties. In Phase I of this project, feasibility will be explored through the following activities: the content of data demanded by the private and public will be defined; forecast methods will be created; basic data will be collected and evaluated; custom software to carry out the forecasts will be programmed and tested with the counties of a prototype state; and detailed Phase II plans for software enhancement, quality control, full-scale national production, and marketing of the data will be made.

Thesaurus Terms:
consumer product, data collection methodology /evaluation, human old age (65+), information system, population survey community planning, computer program /software, geriatric nursing, household, human population dynamics, sex human data

This project will create, for the first time, a comprehensive set of long-term forecasts for older Americans in all United States counties. The basic data will be demographic; age by sex information extending through age 85 and over. The extended contextual data will cover living arrangements, race, income, poverty, and home ownership by age. The older population is quite heterogeneous at the national level, and even more so at the local level. After a period of rapid growth in the recent past, the future portends increasing racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic diversity as well as increases in the oldest old. Their needs and preferences for commercial products and government services reflect that diversity. Future trends will therefore not simply repeat the recent past, and policy makers interviewed during Phase I of this project expressed strong need for forecast data. A unique and innovative alliance of basic and applied research will be brought to bear on these forecasts by the Decision Demographics and University of Wisconsin team. The result will be the creation of the first nationally-consistent set of age-sex forecasts for counties that also includes the characteristics data that will help business and government cater to the unique and changing needs of older Americans.

Thesaurus Terms:
human old age (65+), human population study, socioeconomics human very old age (85+), income, racial /ethnic difference, sex difference human data