Racial and ethnic identity of older adults residing in assisted living facilities in central Florida.

Abstract

In response to the growing concern over the provision of long-term care to an ever-expanding older population, new methods of delivering services to older adults are constantly being developed. The development and expansion of long-term care via assisted living facilities (ALFs) is one approach that has proven surprisingly popular all across the nation. Despite the popularity of ALFs, relatively little appears to be known about the residents of these facilities. This article examines the racial and ethnic identities and certain other characteristics of residents in a stratified probability sample of assisted living facilities in central Florida, a region that contains one of the nation's densest populations of older adults. Fifty-nine facilities serving 1,805 residents were surveyed. Predictably, racial and ethnic minorities were significantly underrepresented among the residents of these facilities. Facilities serving relatively large minority populations were characterized by lower room rates and a larger proportion of beds set aside for Office of Social Services (OSS) residents (i.e., beds funded through state funds or by Medicaid). The general run of these findings suggests that as they have been implemented in central Florida, ALFs may well perpetuate preexisting socioeconomic inequalities among the aged population.