My current research and publications continue a longstanding interest in the measurement and documentation of differential functional impairment trajectories among older adults. A brief 11component measure, the Service Outcome Screen, is also being tested now for use by aging services agencies in North Carolina and by an insurance company client nationally. Applications of functional impairment measurement in large national panels have documented sex, race, and SES as notable predictors of differences and, beyond noting such associations, raise basic questions about why they predict as they do.
Analyses suggest the usefulness of keeping biomedical indicators in the equation.
Additional interests include comparative health services research involving the U.S., U.K., and Canada to study health care reform and the European Communities as a naturally occurring laboratory for comparative social policy formation on long term care issues. A current site for applied research on the effects of designed living environments on maintenance of functioning in later life and on userfriendly information for decision making by care management is the assisted living facility in Durham, PreissSteele Place. Maddox, as director of the Long Term Care Resources Program, manages two statewide demonstration projects for Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust designed to facilitate more effective home and communitybased care systems in North Carolina.