CalWORKs is a "work-first" program of support services intended to move welfare recipients toward work and self-sufficiency. CalWORKs replaces both the federal Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program in California and the statewide Greater Avenues to Independence (GAIN) program and gives counties greater flexibility to design their welfare reform efforts.
The RAND evaluation will analyze the effects of CalWORKs on the welfare system, on former welfare recipients, and on children and families. In more formal terms, the evaluation will include both a process analysis and an impact analysis.
The process analysis will evaluate the implementation of the program at the levels of the state government, county agencies, and local welfare offices. Researchers will evaluate government planning, agency coordination, budget allocations, and case flows of welfare recipients through welfare offices.
The impact analysis will study the outcomes of CalWORKs participants in terms of employment, earnings, schooling, and family well-being. The analysis will compare these outcomes under CalWORKs to what they might have been if AFDC had been kept in place. Researchers will also compare the outcomes of CalWORKs programs across various counties and the organizational outcomes at the state and county levels.
RAND will distribute the evaluation results regularly, starting with the public release of the first process analysis report in February 1999 and ending with the final impact analysis report in October 2001. Results will be available on the Internet at http://www.rand.org/CalWORKs/.
The Lila Wallace--Reader's Digest Fund has commissioned RAND to evaluate the foundation's activities aimed at building participation in the arts.
The researchers will develop a "logic model" to understand how arts programs, arts organizations, artists, community organizations, and community contexts all can encourage or discourage individual decisions to engage in the arts. The researchers will then use the model to evaluate participation-building strategies.
The two-year, $710,000 evaluation will include a literature review, expert interviews, site visits, and a telephone survey.
RAND has acquired Science & Policy Associates, an environmental research company with offices in Washington, D.C., and Boulder, Colorado. The company's staff of six researchers now form the core of the new Environmental Science and Policy Center at RAND.
Since it was founded in 1985, Science & Policy Associates has developed a handbook for states and American Indian tribes on how to conduct ecological assessments, determined the safest replacements for ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons, analyzed the effects of different emission-reduction strategies on air quality and visibility, developed a claims process for natural resource damage caused by oil spills, and managed a global database on greenhouse gas emissions.
The company's clients have included the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Forest Service, NASA, the Western Governors Association, the Chemical Manufacturers Association, Exxon, the Edison Electric Institute, the Electric Power Research Institute, and agencies in Great Britain and the Netherlands.
The acquisition will "enable RAND to address a new class of increasingly important policy issues and take advantage of growing opportunities in the public and private sectors, both in the United States and overseas," said RAND President and Chief Executive Officer James Thomson.
Chris Bernabo, founder and former president of Science & Policy Associates, directs the new center at RAND.
The project focuses on the vulnerable elderly--those at high risk for loss of independent functioning or death because of chronic illnesses and impairments. Members of this rapidly growing group face serious declines in health if their medical care is poor. But current evaluation tools cannot measure the quality of that care--and so cannot be used to hold health care providers accountable or to improve care.
The research team--led by physicians from RAND, UCLA, and nearby Veterans Affairs Medical Centers--will develop new measurement tools and quality- of-care indicators for 21 medical conditions common among the elderly, such as congestive heart failure, stroke, and depression.
The team will select about 600 elderly patients, collect data on the care they had received for those medical conditions, and interview the patients regarding their preferred care. The sample of patients will be drawn from members of managed care plans and from residents in nursing homes.
"This initiative complements the focus of our extensive research and development programs--namely, to bring better medicines and care to patients as rapidly as possible," said Joseph Feczko, senior vice president for medical and regulatory operations at Pfizer Pharmaceuticals Group.
A recent RAND report, The U.S. Aircraft Carrier Industrial Base (RAND/MR-948-NAVY/OSD), already is helping the U.S. Navy generate huge savings by adjusting the production schedule for its next aircraft carrier, CVN 77.
The study team, led by John Birkler, found that hundreds of millions of dollars could be saved if fabrication of the next carrier begins in 2001, a year ahead of schedule, but is stretched out an extra year. The study also showed how ordering equipment from contractors in advance of shipyard construction could save tens of millions of dollars more.
Finally, the study urged a major investment in research and development to find further ways to reduce the costs of construction, of operations and maintenance, and of staffing of these ships.
The navy has accepted the recommendations, which are reflected in this fiscal year's defense authorization bill.
Yes, we're living longer, but are we living better? A new RAND study has some heartening news: The proportion of older Americans who can perform the simple tasks of everyday life has risen significantly.
The extent of improvement varied by age group, however, with the smallest improvement occurring among 50-to-64-year-olds and the largest among those 80 and over. There were improvements across most groups, but the rate of functional limitations remained highest among women, the oldest, the unmarried, Hispanics, the least educated, and those without liquid assets. Blacks were more likely to report difficulties than whites.
The researchers, Vicki Freedman and Linda Martin, cautioned that their findings do not imply reductions in the absolute number of people with limitations. "Given the continuing growth in the older population, planning for the needs of this population remains a challenge." However, if the trends continue, "relatively fewer older people will need medical care and support services . . . and more should be able to work and live independently."
The conclusions of the research first appeared in the October 1998 issue of the American Journal of Public Health. The research is also available as RAND/RP-732.
Further aerospace industry mergers could compromise the nation's ability to develop and produce the world's most advanced weapons systems, according to a new RAND book, The Cutting Edge: A Half Century of U.S. Fighter Aircraft R&D (RAND/MR-939-AF).
The authors, Mark Lorell and Hugh Levaux, link technological innovation and leadership to the size and character of the aerospace industry. They cite three key factors behind the past success of fighter aircraft programs: fierce competition among three or more prime contractors, decades of continuous experience within each of those firms, and government-supported research both in the industry and at government laboratories.
"History suggests that the most important outcome of intense competition among contractors has been unparalleled innovation, particularly by the second-rank contractors trying to replace industry leaders," said Lorell, a military historian. "Now there are no second-rank prime contractors; they have all ceased to exist.
"Today we're effectively down to two prime firms--Lockheed Martin and Boeing--and they have already divided up much of the market in many significant areas. Does sufficient competition remain? Probably, but mergers have now gone far enough."
One key cause of defense industry downsizing, the authors note, is the decline in defense procurement spending and the increasingly long gaps between major research and development programs. The authors propose various strategies to maintain experience and military-industrial cooperation under these conditions: competitive prototype and technology-demonstration programs, further acquisition reform, and selective exploitation of the commercial industrial base.