Data sources for aging research on racial and ethnic groups

This article reports the results of a survey of recent and ongoing aging-related data sources supported by U.S. federal agencies. The survey sought to obtain data on the sample sizes and topics covered within the data sets maintained and frequently used by the various federal agencies engaged in data collection and/or analysis. The objective of the study was to determine the suitability of these data sets to conduct research on minority elders. Formal tests of the adequacy of data set sample sizes to support analysis on various minority groups were performed. Each data set was found to be large enough to conduct research on white elders, and a majority of the data sets were large enough for research on African American elders. However, Hispanics, American Indians, Alaska Natives, Asian Americans, and Pacific Islanders were rarely included in sufficient numbers.