“The 4% Fallacy” in Long-Term Care Statistics

H. R. Moody edits an electronic newsletter, called “Teaching Gerontology,” under the auspices of the Creativity, Longevity & Wisdom Program at Fielding Graduate University in Santa Barbara, California.  It is distributed by the Association for Gerontology in Higher Education. A recent newsletter contained this interesting item:

“We’ve all heard that famous statistic: only 4% of people over 65 are in a long-term care facility (sometimes called simply “nursing home”).  But there’s a reason why this statistic has been called the “4 Percent Fallacy.” The reason is that it’s simply a cross-sectional figure, a snapshot at a single point in time. What is the likelihood of being in a long-term care facility when we look at it  longitudinally, that is, over the life-course?  The bad news is that the risk is not 4% but more like 50%: 44% for men and 58% for women.   The good news is the stays in a nursing home may not necessarily be long: 11 months for a single man and 17 months for a single woman.”

H.R. Moody suggests that for more details, visit:http://crr.bc.edu/briefs/long-term-care-how-big-a-risk/

Further, he notes that CRR’s calculation of average length-of-stay has been challenged and is worth closer examination:  http://centerltc.com/bullets/latest/1070.htm