The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality recently published a newly revised guide to staying healthy for older adults and a report on the Health Care Safety Net Monitoring Initiative, a joint undertaking of AHRQ and the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). Both publications are available from the AHRQ Publications Clearinghouse.
Pocket Guide to Staying Healthy at 50+. AHRQ Publication No. 04-IP001-A.
This guide incorporates new research-based recommendations from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. It was developed in partnership with AARP and updates the original Staying Healthy at 50+ published in 2000. The Pocket Guide, available in English and Spanish, includes tips and recommendations on good health habits, screening tests, and immunizations. It provides easy-to-use charts to help track personal health information and includes questions to ask health care providers, as well as resources to contact for additional information.
This publication is part of the Put Prevention Into Practice program, which is designed to increase the appropriate use of clinical preventive services. PPIP tools, such as this booklet, enable physicians and other health care providers to determine which services their patients should receive and how best to deliver them. A complete listing of Task Force recommendations and PPIP resources can be found online. For more information, select preventive services
Monitoring the Health Care Safety Net: Developing Data-Driven Capabilities to Support Policymaking. Weinick, R.M., and Shin, P.W. AHRQ Publication No. 04-0037.
In September 2003, AHRQ published two data books in cooperation with HRSA. The two data books provide 118 measures to help policymakers, planners, and analysts monitor the safety net in 90 metropolitan areas and all 1,818 metropolitan and nonmetropolitan counties in 30 States and the District of Columbia. Together with a third volume to be published in the near future, these books form the core of the joint AHRQ-HRSA Safety Net Monitoring Initiative.
This report discusses the initiative and presents a data-driven policy framework that involves an explicit statement of priorities and policy questions to be answered by new and existing data. It provides general guidance for using data to support the process of developing policy options for the health care safety net.
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