Julie F. Sergeant

Hoarding interventions with older adults require significant resources from multiple public agencies, yet recidivism occurs frequently. To improve services through better coordination, some communities have formed multiagency hoarding teams (MAHT), which include aging services. MAHTs requested this mixed methods study to understand the progression of cases through the public sector. Quantitative data collected on 52 cases involving adults ages 60+ identified steps in this process. Qualitative data collected from MAHT members were the basis for case studies illustrating the progression of cases through the public sector. Findings have implications for social workers involved in local service coordination, training, and policy.

Objectives: This study examined the relationship between older adults’ expectations to move and actual residential relocation in the community or to a nursing facility within 2 years. Method: Two waves of data (2000, 2002) from the Health and Retirement Study were used to compare expectations with subsequent moves. Logistic regression techniques were used to analyze the association between decision outcomes and expectations to move, health and functioning, physical environment, informal supports, and formal services. Results: Findings indicated that expectations to move did predict community-based moves but did not predict moves to nursing facilities. Additional factors had significant effects but did not diminish relationships between expectations and actual moves. Discussion: Results support the residential decision process as a dynamic one based on the cumulative effect of factors from an ecological model. Findings will inform policy makers and practitioners as they work to support older adults’ preferences to remain living in their homes.

Objectives. This methods article examines how characteristics of residential relocation (e.g., housing type) and research design decisions (e.g., level of analysis, geographic scale) influence reported rates for residential relocation among older adults. Methods. Examination of key studies on late-life residential relocation (1992–2005) revealed a wide range of residential mobility rates and factors that contributed to this variation. These rates were rescaled to a common 5-year time period to allow for a degree of comparison across methodological approaches. Results. We identified a wide range of rates for residential relocation in the literature (from 5% to more than 30% for a 5-year time period). Research design decisions accounted for much of the variation in these rates across studies; geographic scale was associated with the greatest amount of variation. Discussion. We translate the findings into concrete suggestions for investigators. The article provides the background needed to identify the research design best suited to the end purpose of studies on residential relocation (e.g., inform economic policy, understand the individual's aging experience, plan for long-term-care systems). These methodological issues are also relevant to other areas of investigation in which relocation influences the variables being studied (e.g., caregiving, urban planning, neighborhood development).

This qualitative study delineates motives for residential mobility, describes dynamics between the elder and family members during the move decision process, and locates the move decision within ecological layers of the aging context. Interviews were conducted with 30 individuals and couples (ages 60–87) who experienced a community-based move within the past year, and with 14 extended family members. Reasons for moving (from perspectives of both elders who moved and their family members) were grouped into four themes and eleven issues that influenced the move decision. These themes parallel the ecological context of individual health and functioning, beliefs and attitudes, physical environment, and social pressures. Late-life mobility is a significant life transition that is the outcome of an ongoing appraisal and reappraisal of housing fit with individual functioning, needs, and aspirations. Family members are an integral part of these decision and residential mobility processes.